


Steve Rogers and the Wolf Dog

by Dragontrill



Series: The Wolf-dog [1]
Category: Avengers (Movies), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Giving people dogs for Christmas - not a good idea, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pokemon GO References, Stoned animals, Talk Shows, Werewolves, dogs who really aren't dogs, rescue dogs, therapy dogs, will add tags and characters as needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 30,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Given the way their lives worked, when Natasha and Clint got Steve a dog for Christmas, should any of them have been surprised when he turned out to be a werewolf?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Стив Роджерс и его волкопес](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13469568) by [Schwesterchen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwesterchen/pseuds/Schwesterchen)



The pound wasn’t really so bad. The floor was concrete and the barking headache-inducing while the entire place was faintly tinged despite the liberal use of cleaners with the scent of excrement and piss, but it was warm and there was food and water, even if it did consist of cheap kibble and tap water. Given how cold New York was getting this winter, he definitely wasn’t one to bitch about that. 

There were even flea baths and mange treatments and those were well worth putting up with all the smells and noises and even the temporary neutering.

Nestled in a pen formed by four solid walls that stood four feet high in a row a dozen long, he lay on his tattered old blanket and watched people periodically walk past, looking down into the pens at the dogs. Most of the time their appearance sent the dogs into paroxysms of excitement, but he didn’t bother to join in. He was here to stay warm for the winter - and, he didn’t want to admit, because he zigged when he should have zagged and bolted straight into a control officer’s catch loop - not to get adopted. He left that to his neighbours, one of whom was so eager to get a home that she climbed right out of her pen and chased after a family with two children with them. He wished her luck as he heard their shouts of excitement and her barks of happiness.

For the most part, his lack of reaction to any potential adopters kept them moving on and he spent a warm week during the coldest part of New York’s winter, trying to remind himself that he enjoyed the taste of kibble and lukewarm water filled with his own spit while getting to take a crap two feet away from the place where he slept.

Eight days in, two people stopped at the side of his pen and gave him longer than the brief glances he’d received from everyone else.

“What kind of dog is that?” he heard a woman ask. She smelled of perfume and gun oil, a startling enough combination that he lifted his head to look at her. She was a short woman wearing a striped hoodie pulled up over her red hair, her lips pursed as she looked down at him with the most judgemental look he thought he’d received in a very long time. Next to her was a taller man with sandy blond hair and a purple coat, a bandage over the bridge of his nose. 

“Uh… a wolf?” The man asked.

The woman gave him a scathing look. “They don’t dump wolves at the pound.” She peered into the pen again, speculative. He just looked back at her, not blinking. “A Shepherd Husky mix? A Czechoslovakian Wolfhound? A wolf hybrid?” 

“Whatever it is, it looks like it could keep up with Steve.”

“Undoubtably, but Steve would probably want something more friendly. That looks a little too much like it would rather eat the neighbourhood kids than go for a run.” 

Uh, probably not. 

He watched them walk away, continuing down the row of pens, and laid his head down again. A minute later, a few of the workers stopped by the edge of his pen, even though it wasn’t kibble time. Though they were usually friendly, neither of them smelled happy this time; in fact they smelled like people with a job they didn’t want to have to do.

“What about this one?” one of them asked. “He’s a beautiful dog.”

The other one looked at her clipboard. “Picked up as a stray,” she read. “No obedience training. No friendliness towards humans.”

“But it’s almost Christmas, and he doesn’t bite,” the first one protested. 

“So far.” the second woman sighed. “We’re overcrowded and they’re bringing another half dozen in tonight. No one’s going to want to adopt a hundred-seventy-five pound black dog. Not anybody we’d trust not to stick him in a fight ring and we have others here a lot more adoptable. Put him on the euthanasia list.”

“Sometimes I hate this job.”

“So do I.”

Okay, time to go. Time to go right the fuck now. To hell with staying out of the snow and really, rotten dumpster food didn’t taste all that bad. The minute the two women wandered away on their miserable duty, he was up and over the wall of his pen, heading at a run for the far exit from the pound. Several people jumped out of his way, yelping in surprise as he thundered past. 

The woman and the man who’d wondered what breed he was were in front of the door. For a moment he planned to bowl right through them, hit the release bar, and get the hell out of here while he still could, but the two of them dropped into ready crouches, hands moving towards hidden weapons, and he thought back to what else they’d said, especially when he saw it was still snowing through the window in the door. 

Hey, this Steve, whoever he was, sounded a fuckton better than dumpster diving.

He skidded to a halt in front of the two of them, front legs splayed flat on the ground, hind legs up, tail wagging, and butt wiggled for all he was worth. He let his tongue loll and gave them the happiest doggy grin he could manage, ‘take me home’ packed into every squirmy, begging inch of him.

The two of them exchanged a look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw an animal shelter like this on youtube. I forget where it was (I don't think it was New York), but what the hell, artistic liberty! And there was a dog in the clip who kept climbing out and running after potential families. And don't be mad at the pound workers. They're here as plot motivators.


	2. Chapter 2

Oh, sacred Luna’s saggy teats, they were taking him to Stark Tower. He was going to be shedding in the lap of utter luxury.

Crammed into the back seat of a black mustang that the redhead drove as if it weren’t rear-wheel drive in the middle of a near snowstorm, he stuck his head forward between the front seats and watched the tower approach, like either the world’s biggest middle finger or penis. He wasn’t sure which. He didn’t care which. Luuuuuxury…..

Clint, who was the man, glanced idly at him, a speculative look on his face. “Think he’s housebroken?” 

“Not my problem.” Natasha, the woman, shifted gears and managed not to slide them sideways into a crowd of late Christmas shoppers as she took the mustang into a alley next to the Stark building and around what should have been far too tight of a turn to a downward ramp. Doors lifted just in time for them to growl down and into an underground parking garage filled with some truly elegant automobiles. He stared, rapt.

“Ugh, he’s drooling on me!”

“Not my problem either,” Natasha said and parked the car.

They got out and he got out with them, grudgingly wearing a black leather collar and leash and pretending he knew how to heel, at least until they’d signed the adoption paperwork. Now he headed over to check out a bugatti. 

“Fuck, he’s strong!” Clint gasped as he got dragged along with.

“Good evening, Agents Romanov and Barton,”said a Scottish woman’s voice from somewhere in the ceiling. “The boss didn’t mention you were bringing an animal onto the presences.”

“The boss doesn’t know, Friday,” Natasha said. “He’s a Christmas present for Steve.” 

“Ah, then that means it won’t be living here, then?” She sounded relieved.

Well, that was disappointing. He dropped back down from where he’d been peering into the Ducati and back onto his paws with a huff of annoyance. He wanted to live in the big rich people tower. 

Clint pulled on his leash. “Come on, boy,” he said. 

He ignored him. If he wasn’t going to get to stay here, he was at least going to check out the lamborghinis before he had to leave. He headed over towards them, still dragging Clint along.

“Natasha, help!”

“Don’t look at me,” she smirked.

“I’ve taken the liberty of sending some assistance,” Friday said.

There was a nice cherry red lambo ahead, real gorgeous. He padded towards it, nose twitching, and actually yelped when a purple man Walked. Through. The. Wall. An actual purple man, wearing a turtleneck sweater and slacks, with a yellow gem in the middle of his forehead, who smelled so very, very wrong. He bared his teeth and backed up, a low growl he didn’t want to admit was fear sounding in his throat. Okay, so maybe he was good with not living in the tower after all.

The purple man gave him a mild look and then regarded the other two. “Friday expressed that you may require some assistance?” he asked.

“Yeah. Thanks, Vision.” Clint said. “He doesn’t really do so good on the leash yet.” Clint handed it over. “Sorry he growled at you. I think you spooked him. It’s the most aggression we’ve seen him show.”

Vision took hold of the leash, which made his skin crawl by sheer proximity. “I am not concerned. Friday said this was a gift for Steven?” The weirdo started walking towards the elevators with the two of them.

He planted all four feet, braced himself, and was unfairly surprised as he was dragged straight across the cement behind them. 

“Steve spends too much time alone,” Clint says. “He needs a buddy.” 

“He needs to get laid,” Natasha corrected, “but he keeps saying no to that. This is the next best thing.”

He was dragged into the elevator, which was nicely wood paneled and would have been enjoyable if it weren’t for freaky-weird super-strong purple dude.

“In my studies of human traditions for the upcoming festival,” Vision said, “I have learned that the giving of an animal to another is oftentimes considered a poorly thought out gift.” Natasha frowned and he quickly backtracked. “Not to imply that you didn’t-”

“We’ve been stalking Steve on this for months,” Clint promised. “Trust me, he’s been thinking of getting a dog for a while now. He’s just slow to commit.”

“We’re pushing the issue a bit is all,” Natasha purred. “He’ll thank us for it.”

At least he didn’t have to worry about being sent back to the pound in a week. Not that he didn’t plan to hightail it once the weather warmed up. Unless he was eating kibble in someplace like Stark Tower, he didn’t want to be anybody’s pet.

The elevator opened, depositing them onto what looked like a high class hotel hallway. Vision dragged him to a door at the end of the hall, which opened onto a very modern looking apartment with floor to ceiling windows that offered a gorgeous view. His claws left unsightly gouges across the wood floor.

“Where do you wish me to place the animal?” Vision asked.

That was how he ended up locked in a back bedroom with a dog bed, a bowl of kibble, a second bowl of water, and a rubber toy shaped like a dog bone. He sat in the middle of the floor and sulked. So far, his life of luxury sucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have nothing against Vision, but he's got to smell weird.


	3. Chapter 3

Walkies that night were provided by Vision, who took him around the block with a couple of plastic baggies and strict instructions on what to do with them, but no concept of the idea of privacy. He still smelled fucking unnatural too, enough to make it nearly impossible for a guy to go. 

Almost.

“Perhaps Thor would wish to take him for his morning walk?” Vision suggested as he brought him back to his room. “He peed on my shoe.”

He spent the night in the room, though Clint stayed with him, because “You can’t just leave a dog by himself, Nat. He’d eat the room.” 

It was a thought. Some of the furnishings looked almost tasty.

Clint didn’t come alone, either. He brought with him a one-eyed yellow lab who look one look at him and hid under the bed. He left the dog - and Clint trying to coax him out - alone. He wasn’t a total asshole. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible night.

In the morning, the aforementioned Thor did come to take him for his walk. He was a huge blond man who smelled like ozone and stood with the regality of a king. 

“This is the beast chosen for our Steven?” He asked as he stood with his hands on his hips and looked down at him. He actually made him feel small, not a feeling he was used to.

“Yes,” Natasha agreed. “Don’t tell Cap he’s here.”

“From my understanding, the Captain is not arriving until noon.” He picked up the leash.

“Don’t people nowadays understand that on Christmas day, you’re supposed to open your presents at disgustingly early hours?”

Thor took him out. He was at least as strong as Vision, but he didn’t smell as freaky unnatural and he didn’t stare. So he did get to do his business with a modicum of dignity that was quickly destroyed when the man cleaned it up after him. Thor gave him a good, solid pet on the head though, and that was all right.

He went back to the room they’d been keeping him in - where the lab was no longer in sight - and waited alone until about the middle of the day, contemplating eating the dog bed just for something to do until the door opened again. It was the redhead, carrying his leash and a big red bow, which she tied around his neck before clipping the leash to his collar. 

“Walk nicely or else,” she told him.

He looked up at her face for a moment and decided he would.

She led him back out to the elevator and up to what had to be a multi-leveled penthouse. Immediately, he wanted to stay in the tower again. Chrome, wood, leather furniture, opulent paintings. He could smell the money. He could smell the booze too, coming from a wide marble bar where a short man with a goatee pointed a whisky tumbler at him and shouted “What the hell is that?”

“Shut up, Tony!” Came a chorous of voices. 

There were a bunch of people there, most of them gathered around a massive Christmas tree with what looked to be dozens of already opened presents scattered underneath it. The people all smelled happy and for the most part human. Freaky purple dude was there, but mostly off to one side, next to a woman with huge, kohl circled eyes, and Natasha wasn’t leading him over there anyway. Instead she took him into the middle of the group, where everyone stood with excited grins around a tall, blond man who sat on an ottoman with a patient smile and both his hands clapped over his eyes.

“Can I look yet?” He asked patiently.

“No!” Everyone yelled.

This had to be Steve. He walked up to him and when Natasha pushed down on his hindquarters, he tolerantly put his butt on the floor. He didn’t look too bad. Definitely fit, nice smile, kind voice. Didn’t seem like the sort to kick a dog. Even smelled nice. Like fresh sweat and unscented soap. 

“Alright,” Natasha said. “Open your eyes.”

Steve opened his eyes, which turned out to be blue, and also were able to get really wide when he saw what was sitting in front of him. He let his tail thump against the floor once in amusement. 

“Oh my god,” Steve gasped. He slid down to the floor on his knees and dug his fingers into his black ruff. Oh, that was nice. He could keep that up for a while. “Oh my god!”

The ‘Oh my gods’ kept up for a while, which made the following ‘I couldn’t possibys’ not hold a lot of weight. He didn’t really pay much attention. Steve’s fingers were scritching through his fur the whole time like he was touch starved and he’d never been one to turn down a good scritch. Or keep his dignity as he flopped down onto his back so he could get a thorough belly rubbing. 

Everyone just laughed at Steve. “Too late, you’re keeping him,” Clint said. “Look, he’s already bonded. You’d break his heart if you sent him back.”

Tony wandered over and looked down at him. “It’s shedding on my five thousand dollar hand woven carpet,” he observed.

“Dogs do that,” Steve said happily, still belly scratching the way he should be. He looked up, his eyes just a bit damp. “Thanks, guys. I mean it.”

Natasha elbowed Clint. “Told you he’d love him.”

“I’m the one who told you that!”

“What are you going to call him, Cap?” Asked a man in a USAF sweatshirt and an elf hat.

“I don’t really know, Sam…” Steve frowned. “Did he come with a name?”

“Nope. He’s an unclaimed stray.”

Some suggestions were thrown out, most of them lame, since there was no way he’d respond to the name “Puddles” or “Blackie,” though “Chaos” sounded kind of cool. 

Steve finally shook his head. “Sergeant,” he decided.

Sam laughed. “The Captain and his Sergeant? That’s so you.” 

The newly christened Sergeant didn’t quite roll his eyes. Meh. He could live with it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to stick a cover I made at the bottom of this chapter, but it's not working, it seems. If I can't get it to do what I want, the picture is here. http://hydraarill.tumblr.com/image/149100375673
> 
> *sigh*

Home for Steve was somewhere in upstate New York, at a high tech, almost military-like complex in the middle of the woods in Buttfuck, Nowhere. It was all shiny clean and white, and when Sergeant first got there and followed Steve inside, he had the unpleasant image in his mind of bunks in communal rooms and mess halls. Instead, he was pleasantly pleased to discover that Steve had a one-bedroom ground floor apartment along the side of the building all to himself.

“Here’s home,” he said as he led Sergeant in and unclipped his leash to let him wander and explore while he turned to take control of the cart some intern had been pushing behind them. It was piled high with Sergeant’s dog bed, toys, kibble, bowls, blanket, scooper, and whatever else Steve had gotten for Christmas that year. Apparently it’d been very dog themed for him that year, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised at getting a living, breathing pooch of his own.

Sergeant prowled through the apartment, sniffing and listening. It was open concept, the front door letting into an open area with the kitchen directly to his left and what looked to be half office, half art studio to his right. The rest of the apartment was split lengthwise by a wall, with the dining area and living space to the left and a bathroom with the biggest shower he’d ever seen and a bedroom to the right. Sergeant explored it all, sniffing curiously at everything, not that there was a lot. Steve had nice furniture, well made and glossy, with a goodly selection of art supplies in the den, a television on the wall, a small liquor cabinet, and an expensive looking record player and record collection, but there wasn’t much in the way of knick knacks or other mementoes. So at least he didn’t have to worry about knocking anything over with his tail. He sniffed his way around, checked out the french doors onto the patio, made his way around to the bedroom, which was just as spartan as the rest of the apartment, gazed in awe at the stand up shower, came back to the living room, and hopped up to settle onto the couch.

Oh yeah. Real corinthian leather.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Steve said and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him down. Fucker was as strong as Thor or Vision. “Bad dog. Stay down.”

Sergeant snorted, circled around him, and went back up onto the couch. Looked like he had to get this dominance shit settled right away. It was time to show who was going to be in charge of this little relationship. He spread out along the couch, nice and comfortable.

Steve straightened up, hands on his hips, and glared at him. “Get down,” he said.

Sergeant wagged his tail at him.

“Down,” Steve said, more sternly this time.

Sergeant yawned.

Two seconds later, Steve had him by the scruff of the neck, lifted him straight off the couch, and deposited him on the floor. Then he stretched out on the couch himself, taking up all of the room Sergeant had just been using.

Did he just dump him like he was a puppy? Seriously? Oh, that was just not on. Not at all. It was time for the big guns.

Sergeant leaped for the couch and had a pleasant instant to see Steve’s eyes widen before he landed right on top of him. Steve howled, getting a paw or two in the gut - Sergeant decided to be kind and save the paw to the nard for a later surprise attack - and threw his arms around him, presumably to wrestle him back off and to the floor again.

That was when Sergeant brought out his ultimate weapon and started licking every part of Steve’s face that he could reach. The man gave a high pitched shriek and tried to buck him off, but Sergeant was ready for it and hooked his front paws over his shoulders, hanging on and just licking harder, making sure to use extra slobber.

“Gahh!” Steve gasped and rolled them both off the couch to the floor with a loud crash that sent the coffee table screeching across the floor to hit the central wall. Sergeant immediately leaped for the couch again, but Steve grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back. Sergeant scrabbled for purchase with his paws, but all he managed to do was pull the couch cushions down onto the floor with him. 

They both ended up there, Steve sitting splay-legged on the floor on his ass with his arms around Sergeant in his lap, all four paws curled against his belly and leaning against Steve’s chest and licking his face while his tail wagged harder than he could remember it ever wagging before. The cushions were scattered all around them.

Steve laughed uncontrollably, his face red, sputtering whenever Sergeant managed to aim a good lick across his open mouth. Finally, the man was able to push his mouth away. “You’re terrible,” he chuckled. “Oh my god!”

Yes, yes he was. Absolutely terrible. He just contorted himself to give him a few more licks in agreement.

“Enough of that, you have too much energy.” Steve pushed himself to his feet. “You need a good run.”

He headed for the bedroom, already yanking off his shirt to change. Sergeant eyed the messed up couch, decided that yes, he’d won that one, and trotted after him to find Steve changing into running slacks in the bedroom. Sergeant immediately jumped up onto the bed and laid down.

Steve eyed him. “By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to be too tired to jump up on the furniture,” he promised.

Yeah, like to see you try, buddy.

Steve changed into running gear appropriate for the weather, which was still shit as far as Sergeant was concerned, and clipped his leash to his collar. He took him out the french doors into the side yard, where there was a sidewalk that some poor sap had cleared of snow. It was already dark out and cold, but well lit from artificial lights and warm enough for Sergeant, given his thick fur. 

Steve started at a brisk walk, warming up his muscles, and Sergeant paced at his side, just waiting to take off and see if he could maybe take his new human for a drag. With all the snow, he might be able to turn him into a decent sled. 

Instead, once they circled around to the front of the building and reached the main road, Steve began to jog. Actually, jog was the wrong word. Run was the wrong word. Sprint like an Olympian didn’t bloody well cover it. Sergeant had seen cars that went slower than this man. He had to stretch himself and gallop across the snow at full speed just to keep up.

It was awesome.

They ran the length of the road, a full seven miles to the main gate, where Steve got him some water to lap up, and then seven miles back, just as fast. Sergeant didn’t want to admit that he might have been flagging by the end of it. No, that wasn’t him. That was Steve. Human just couldn’t keep it up after all. He staggered into the apartment, panting heavily, and Steve grabbed a towel to rub him down before leading him over to his dog bed. Sergeant flopped down and was asleep before he could think about who had just won which battle here tonight after all.


	5. Chapter 5

The best thing about being a dog, once all the necessary items of food, water, warmth, and fleas had been dealt with, was the zen of it. You didn’t have to worry about tomorrow, or yesterday. You could just live in the moment. You didn’t have to do anything, accomplish anything, or succeed at anything. You were allowed to just be. 

A week after his arrival, Sergeant spent a goodly portion of the morning just being in the middle of Steve’s bed, flat on his back with his paws splayed, snoring out loud. It was a highly enjoyable activity and one of his favourites. It took hours to do it properly.

Once he was done that, he nosed his way around the apartment. Steve was gone for the day doing stupid human stuff, the sucker, so he wolfed down the kibble in his bowl, lapped up all of his water, and went sniffing to see if there was anything he’d missed all the previous days he’d done his rounds. Not really. Steve just didn’t seem to own much. Hell, Sergeant suspected he had more belongings than the man, given the toy collection he’d amassed. Come to think of it…

He spent another entertaining few hours flinging a rubber bone around the living area and chasing it. That took him past noon, according to the clock, which was later than the point when Steve usually came by to have lunch and let him out. 

Oh shit, now he had to pee. Fucking hell. Sergeant tried to ignore the growing sensation in his belly, but his eyes kept shifting back to the clock as Steve didn’t return and the feeling only got worse. Maybe he shouldn’t have drunk all his water. Another forty-five minutes went by and he let out a whine. This was stupid. He was not going to piss on the fucking rug like some kind of goddamned poodle.

Yet another half hour went by and the clock passed one-thirty. Sergeant eyed the French doors. They were locked from the inside, probably alarmed, and he knew there were cameras outside pointed right at them. One didn’t survive being him without being observant about things like that. 

That left one other option, other than the poodling, and knowing his dumb luck, this would be when Steve would decide to show up. Sergeant told his bladder to just be patient, but it wasn’t listening, so he gingerly crept with his tail between his legs to the bathroom.

It wasn’t until he was inside with the door nearly shut behind him - he wanted to be able to hear the front door if it opened - that he made himself focus; and nearly pissed himself anyway. The change didn’t come easily. It never did. His body got used to a shape and it didn’t want to give it up.

He couldn’t even remember how long he’d been in the wolf form this time, pretending he was a stray dog. Six months? A year? If he ignored any quick changes back to human that were for less than a day, it might be closer to five years. He hissed against the weird, crawling, creeping pain as his limbs shifted, his bones either lengthening or shortening to take on human shape and proportion, sometimes merging together, other times splinting apart. His muscles rippled along with them, itching unbearably as they took on their new shapes and somehow, the feel of the ligaments pulling was always the worst. Almost as bad as the fact that he could hear it, a shripping, sucking sound that should never have belonged in nature. His muzzle shrank, leaving him breathless as his throat constricted for the moment before his jaw shifted and his mouth gaped wide, fangs flattening to human teeth while he worked the bones into their proper place with loud, painful clicking noises.

He was immediately cold and sweaty, crouched on the floor with his head down, long hair obscuring his vision. He still had to pee, but he didn’t know if he could stand. All his balance was used to four legs and a tail, not two. He crawled to the toilet and had to sit on it, sighing in relief as he was finally able to relieve himself.

After, he felt too shaken to move right away, his body like rubber and the muscles still twitching and cramping. He couldn’t sit on the toilet forever, though, and soon enough the hard porcelain started to make his legs go to sleep, so he grabbed the counter and pulled himself awkwardly to his feet, swaying with dizzy drunkenness as he tried not to fall down. Or to scream, as his entire body felt pins and needles, as if it were waking up. 

He hated shifting form. If he didn’t do it so infrequently, he knew he’d get used to it and it wouldn’t be so bad, but as it was, it was a minor version of hell. Five minutes after it was done, he was okay, but for those five minutes? Bleagh. He felt like he’d just been shat out by a diarrheic elephant. 

The dizziness faded at last and he lifted his head to see his own reflection staring back at him from the big mirror over the sinks. Now that was a face he hadn’t seen in so long that he wouldn’t have recognized it in a picture.

He was shorter than Steve, darker skinned, with eyes a paler, more watery blue and a rounder face with a cleft chin. He had muscles nearly as defined as Steve, thanks to all the running he did as a wolf, but where Steve was sleek and flawless, he had scars, the worst of them running down the length of his left arm, where the werewolf that turned him had savaged the limb nearly to hamburger. 

He stared at his face, framed by long, wavy dark hair. It wasn’t much of a face, he thought. Maybe handsome. It didn’t matter. He’d turned his back on any sort of human life a long time ago. The wolf was easier, safer, by far less painful. The now of a dog’s thinking didn’t have to deal with memory or regret. The worst he had to look forward to was Steve’s disappointment if he caught him on the couch. 

He’d have to deal with a lot worse if Steve caught him like this. Though he was still shaken, he pushed himself away from the counter and dropped to his hands and knees. Then he called the change again, embracing the pain with greater willingness this time as he shifted back into the form of Sergeant, and expectations that were so much easier to bear than those of the man he used to be.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve finally came back after it was dark, a good four hours past the time Sergeant had to resort to using the bathroom. He’d left that morning in ordinary clothing, but he barged back in wearing an armoured blue and red uniform that was streaked with soot and dirt, a shield slung across his back. His face was dirty and his hair an absolute disaster.

He smelt of gunpowder and blood, sweat and adrenaline. “Sergeant!” He gasped as he dropped a plastic bag he was carrying on the kitchen counter and charged across the apartment towards him, grabbing up Sergeant’s leash as he came. Lounged across the couch, Sergeant was so surprised by this sort of appearance that he temporarily forgot the snub he’d been working on all day. Steve had the leash clicked and him out the side door in seconds, babbling all the way. 

“I am so sorry,” he said while Sergeant gave him a sniff and then did his business. “It was a completely normal morning and then we were called out for an emergency and by the time I had a chance to call someone to take you for your walk, our comms were being blocked, then they were damaged and I couldn’t call in at all, and why am I explaining myself to a dog?”

Fucked if I know, bub.

Finished, Sergeant turned his nose away from him and padded back into the apartment. “I’m really sorry?” Steve hedged at his back and tried to pet him. Sergeant ducked under his hand and went inside.

I’m not talking to you, asshole. 

Just to prove he meant it, he went straight up onto the couch, circled, and laid down, eyes fixed right on Steve. 

You are a jackass. 

Steve stood inside the door and gave him a miserable look, but he didn’t tell him to get down. He just closed the door and came over to unhook the leash. He petted his head, but Sergeant turned his face away. 

You made me pee in a toilet, you fucker.

Steve sighed again. “I’ll get your dinner,” he said and went into the kitchen, where he kept Sergeant’s kibble in a cupboard. He moved with slow, depressed movements, every step dragging, and Sergeant almost felt bad, except he’d had to fucking shift!

Steve poured out some of the kibble and stared at it. “That looks vile,” he muttered and looked at the ingredients. “What’s in this?”

Corn, cow hooves, and rat parts. Everything a growing boy needs. 

Steve gaped at him. “How can you eat this?”

Because I only have ten percent of the taste buds you do? Come on, fork it out, punk.

Instead, Steve shuddered, dumped the kibble back into the bag, and grabbed the plastic bag he’d brought instead. It had a food container in it and he peeled the top off to fill the room with the smell of -

STEAK? IS THAT MOTHERFUCKING STEAK?!

Sergeant was off the couch and into the kitchen before Steve could even start to cut the steak into pieces, his tail wagging so hard it was beating against the side of the counter. 

Steve smiled down at him and lowered the full bowl to the floor. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

I love you. I love you so much. You are my bestest best friend ever. I don’t care that I had to piss in porcelain. You brought me noms! 

He inhaled the food - chewing was for wimps - and licked the bowl so hard he had to chase it across the floor. Steve laughed and stroked his back while he did. That felt nice. Okay, he’d suffered enough, Sergeant decided, so he lifted his head and slapped his tongue across Steve’s dirty face. 

Mm, engine grease. Not too bad for dessert.

His stomach rumbling, Steve went to take a shower. Sergeant didn’t feel guilty about that. If he was hungry, there was a whole bag of kibble for him to eat. Instead, he took the opportunity to hop up onto the counter and lick out the leftover juices in the food container and then down again to follow Steve into the bathroom. 

He was in that massive, gorgeous looking shower, his uniform left scattered on the floor. He looked out at Sergeant while he sniffed the uniform and then the strange metal of the shield left on top of them. None of the blood he was picking up hints of smelled like it was Steve’s. He nosed at the star in the middle of the shield.

Steve watched him through the shower’s glass wall while he lathered his hair. “I guess I never told you I was Captain America,” he said, or really babbled, since he had no way of knowing he was understood. Sort of.

Captain Who? Not up on what’s what and who’s who the last while, bub. 

He’d recognized Stark Tower, but that had been on every television he passed so many times that he couldn’t help it. Plus, how could he avoid noticing a giant neon phallic symbol? Even as a werewolf playing doggie, it made the prepubescent boy in him want to point and giggle.

Steve just smiled at him and ducked his head under one of the many shower heads to rinse off. “It doesn’t matter. Today won’t happen again. I’ll make sure you get let out.”

Swear it?

“I swear.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dogs do actually only have 10% of the taste buds of a human, and apparently they don't really taste salt. I looked it up.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve, human god that he was, did a lot of research on the internet and switched him to a raw food diet. Sergeant was in heaven. Between the food, the awesome runs, the endless attention in the evenings, and the fact that the man had the habit of talking to him like he was a real person - which he was - Steve was the best owner he’d ever had.

Sergeant had had a lot of owners over the years, all of differing qualities and for differing periods of time, all of whom he’d escaped from eventually. 

When it was by his own choice, most of the time he’d drifted into human companionship in order to improve his chances of survival in a long winter or in order to travel to where he wanted to go. Sometimes he’d just wanted to be near people, a need inside of himself for companionship that he couldn’t always deny. It didn’t last, though. People would start thinking they owned him, that they could chain him up and abuse him, or starve him and still expect him to do what they wanted. Or they’d get too used to his presence and ignore him.

Too often, they’d become afraid of him, sense there was something different about him, something that made other dogs cower and livestock roll their eyes in fear. They’d realize he understood more than any dog should and then out would come the guns and the pitchforks and on he’d have to go.

Sergeant really hoped that Steve didn’t figure out what he was for a good long time, because this wasn’t an arrangement he wanted to see end anytime soon. 

“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen,” Sam said as he watched Steve grind up muscle and organ meat and mix it with powdered bone, egg, and various vegetables. Sergeant was watching him too, tail wagging.

So goooood…..

“It’s a lot better for him than any commercial food,” Steve protested and set the bowl on the floor for Sergeant to inhale while he disassembled the grinder to clean. “Look at how shiny his coat is.”

Sam just shook his head. “You spoil that dog rotten,” he said.

“I do not,” Steve laughed.

Sam leaned against the counter. “Do too. Since you got him, we hardly see you outside of work for movie night or anything. Someone might think you were using him to avoid us.”

Steve gave him a look. “Are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“Nope. Just making observations as a friend.”

Steve sighed. Finished with his supper, Sergeant looked back and forth between the two of them. Sam smelled determined to him, Steve somehow tired. “I’m not avoiding anyone. It’s just Sergeant’s alone for a lot of the day and he deserves to have me with him whenever I can be.” His hand drifted down while he spoke and dug into Sergeant’s ruff in wonderful ways.

Oh yeah….

“So bring him along,” Sam argued. “Nobody’s gonna care. Just come to the movie tonight. Everybody wants to see you.” Steve still smelled hesitant. “I’m gonna keep nagging until you do, man.”

“Okay, fine,” Steve relented. “Just let me walk him first.”

“Awesome!” Sam cheered. “I’m holding you to that.”

After walkies, Steve led Sergeant back out the apartment’s front door, the first time he’d done so since he arrived. Usually the two of them went in and out through the side door onto the grass. Or snow, rather, though there was some dead grass starting to peek up in places as winter got near its end. Sergeant walked peacefully at his side. He couldn’t pull Steve, so there was no fun in trying to drag him and when he walked at his side nicely, Steve had a tendency to pat his head and ruffle his ears, which was behaviour he always liked to encourage.

They turned in the opposite direction from the one that led to the working areas of the building and the main entrance, instead heading past what looked to be more numbered apartment doors like Steve’s and around a corner into a communal kitchen and eating area. Sergeant immediately started sniffing towards the interesting smells coming from the kitchen, but Steve rubbed his ears in a wonderfully distracting way. 

“Come on, boy, there’s nothing in there you want to eat.”

Shows what you know.

Past the eating and cooking area, a few steps led down into a wide living area decorated with wide, comfortable couches and low coffee tables, with a huge television set mounted on the wall. Pretty much everyone who’d been there at Christmas in the tower was here now and they all called out greetings as Steve led Sergeant in. 

“Fuck that mutt is big,” Tony said from where he lounged next to an elegant woman with strawberry blonde hair. “You sure it’s not part bear?”

“Tony,” the blonde admonished as she pushed against him with her shoulder.

“What? I mean, look at that thing!”

“Afraid of dogs, Tony?” Natasha taunted.

“Only when they’re big enough to swallow my head.”

A young woman with a lot of dangly, rattling jewelry and kohl-circled eyes jumped up and hurried over to drop to her knees in front of Sergeant, her hands held out for him to sniff. “Don’t be mean,” she said. “He’s beautiful.”

Sergeant obligingly smelled her hands. There was the scent of spices, sandalwood, and patchouli. Fresh flowers. She beamed at him, his slightest attention her greatest delight, so he rewarded her with a lap of his tongue over her fingers.

“Oh, he’s wonderful,” she said and threw her arms around his neck to give him a hug and a fur scritching almost as good as Steve could manage.

“I’m glad you like him, Wanda,” Steve said with a smile. “He’s been great so far.”

“Can we get to the movie?” Tony bitched.

Steve found his seat, which was on a wide couch opposite from Clint. Wanda went back to her seat, which was next to Vision - that did take her down in Sergeant’s estimations a bit, but he decided he still liked her, for the belly scratches if nothing else.

There was an entire open cushion between Steve and Clint. Sergeant hopped up onto it and sat down. Steve pushed him down onto the floor. Sergeant hopped back up.

“Sergeant, down,” Steve ordered in his best command voice.

As if. Clint had a bowl of popcorn in his lap. Sergeant ignored Steve and stared intently at it.

“Troubles with asserting command, Cap?” Tony taunted.

“Just leave him, Steve,” Natasha said. “Or we’ll never get the movie started.” Everyone else choroused agreement.

Steve sighed, but he gave in. Awesome.

Sergeant ignored the first part of the movie, busily staring at Clint as he took each popped kernel out of the bowl and watched its movement while he lifted it up to his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. 

Clint ate fifteen of them, very slowly, very methodically, and then flicked the sixteenth sideways towards Sergeant, who snatched it out of the air and swallowed it before Steve, who had his hand resting on the back of Sergeant’s neck, could look over. “Huh?” Clint ignored him, chewing kernel number seventeen. Steve looked back towards the movie.

Clint flicked Sergeant the next kernel.

They worked through the bowl that way, Steve none the wiser, though Sergeant suspected that Natasha knew. Eventually, Sergeant started to get thirsty and watched as Clint opened a bottle of beer and took a deep swallow before resting the bottle against his leg and returning to the popcorn.

Mm…. Beer.

Sergeant eyed the beer and looked at Clint. He hadn’t tossed him a kernel in the last few minutes and seemed intent on the movie, which Sergeant was trying to ignore since dogs generally didn’t watch them. He seemed pretty into it. So did Steve, who had put his hands back into his lap and was staring at the screen. Everyone was as some sort of courtroom drama took place. 

Slowly, Sergeant edged closer to Clint and lowered his head nonchalantly towards the beer bottle. Clint didn’t react. He still didn’t react when Sergeant got his lips and teeth over the mouth of the bottle and lifted it away. Now came the part where he had to be fast. 

Sergeant flipped his head back, jaws and neck pointed straight up, and chugged the beer, most of it going straight down his throat in a wonderfully hop filled flow. It didn’t go unnoticed.

“What the hell?” Steve bellowed. Everyone else started yelling or exclaiming while Clint snapped a cameraphone picture and Tony laughed his ass off.

Sergeant dropped the empty bottle and belched. Oh yeah, movie nights were awesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really enjoying all the comments people are sending it. They're very inspiring, plus they sometimes give me ideas on where the story should go. Thanks.
> 
> Oh, btw, don't give a real dog alcohol. They can't metabolize it, so it's very toxic to them. I guess werewolves are okay. ;)


	8. Chapter 8

A few weeks after movie night, Sergeant woke up late one evening from one of his important daily naps. It was late, the apartment dark, so he stretched his way out of his oh-so-scooshy dog bed in a corner of Steve’s art studio/office and padded towards the bedroom to get some decent zzzs started at the foot of his bed.

Steve wasn’t in bed. Sergeant snuffled at that surprising realization and turned back out of the room, padding quietly through the apartment in search of him. If Steve had actually left, he’d have woken when the door opened. 

He found Steve sitting in the dark in the living room, staring likely at nothing unless he had better night vision than Sergeant thought he did. Sergeant lifted his nose and scented the air. 

Steve smelled sad. He’d smelled sad from time to time before, but now he smelled really sad, achingly sad. The kind of bone deep sad that brought a sympathetic whine to Sergeant’s throat. 

What the hell was he supposed to do now? Sergeant shifted his front paws uncertainty, wondering if he should just go and take the opportunity to hog the bed, but he didn’t want to leave Steve sitting like this, feeling so sad. He looked so alone. 

Sergeant edged closer and hopped up onto the couch beside him. Steve glanced over at him, but went back to his thousand yard stare without even trying to push him to the floor. That was so utterly wrong. Sergeant whined and nosed his cheek, but Steve didn’t react other than to lean away from him a little bit. 

You’re not going to ignore me, punk.

Sergeant thought for a moment and then wormed his nose underneath Steve’s arm, working his way underneath the limb until it was draped over his shoulders and back as he crawled into the man’s lap and twisted his neck around so that he could put some serious focus onto licking his face.

Wherever Steve had retreated to in his own mind, it was next to impossible to ignore a hundred seventy plus pounds of lap dog licking every inch of your skin. His nose wrinkled first and then his sorrowful scent began to lift as he tried to push Sergeant away, sputtering. Sergeant just redoubled his assault, his tail wagging. 

“Hey! Hey!” Steve twisted his face out of reach, hands reaching up to gently grab Sergeant’s muzzle and hold it closed with the end of his tongue sticking out. He brought his head down and looked at him, shadowed in the darkness but awake. “I’m okay.” 

Sergeant wriggled his tongue at him and managed to lap the edge of his chin. Steve smiled at him. “Good dog.” 

Of course I am. I’m the best dog. 

Rather than push him down, Steve let go of his muzzle and pulled him into what was likely a more comfortable position in his lap, his arms wrapped around him and his fingers buried in his fur. It was more than a bit warm, but Sergeant didn’t protest, getting the feeling that this was something Steve needed right now. 

You okay, buddy? Sergeant pressed his nose against his ear and Steve tilted his head to press against the top of his muzzle as he hugged him. For a time, he just held him, cuddling him and scratching deep in his fur.

“Sorry if I worried you, boy,” he said at last. “Some days are just… not too good for me.”

Yeah, kinda noticed that. Sergeant gave him an extra lick in commiseration. 

Steve scratched his ears. “It’s just,” he went on, “sometimes, even with everything I have and everything I’ve accomplished, I still feel like none of this is real and I’m still in the ice.”

Uh, what?

Steve hugged him tightly, almost hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Sergeant let him, his tail still wagging. “Thanks for bringing me back, boy,” he whispered. 

You’re welcome.

Steve went to bed soon after that, Sergeant sticking close to his side and curling up close to his head instead of at the foot of the bed the way he usually did. Steve fell asleep with his hand tangled in Sergeant’s ruff, but Sergeant stayed awake, somehow feeling compelled to keep guard.

In the morning, Steve was back to normal, taking them both for their morning run before he showered and made breakfast. Sergeant inhaled his with his usual enthusiasm and followed Steve happily to the door for last minute cuddles before the man left for the work day. 

Once Steve was gone, Sergeant lowered his head and forced the change, groaning as he drove the shift from wolf to man. Agony flared through him and he was left panting for a few minutes on the carpet as he recovered, before finally he was able to drag himself up to hands and knees and crawl to the small desk in the office/artist area.

Steve had a laptop there. Sergeant didn’t know a whole lot about computers, but he did know a bit. He knew about the internet, and enough to know that you could ask it anything you wanted to know. He probably still would have spent hours trying to figure out how to use it if he hadn’t lifted the lid and the non-password protected device hadn’t immediately opened to a web browser and the last page Steve left it at. 

Sergeant stared at the google image on the screen for a long moment and at the text field below it with the blinking cursor at the left side. Slowly, he lifted his hands and, one letter at a time, laboriously began to type.

TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT CAPTAIN AMERICA.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve seriously did better on a steady diet of snuggles. He didn't smell as lonely and he didn't suffer as many nightmares. Captain America, Sergeant decided, needed to have his faithful support dog with him at all times.

Sergeant had looked the term up on the internet one day. Whether it was official or not, HE, he decided, was an emotional support dog.

Which meant Steve leaving him behind in the apartment all the time was really starting to suck moldy cock.

“Yes, ma'am,” said the latest agent assigned to take him for walkies while Steve was off doing whatever it was Steve did. The man had shown up wearing a black suit and the shiniest loafers Sergeant had ever seen, but his voice as he spoke over his cell phone was just short of a whine. “Yes ma'am, of course I recognize the importance of every task given to us.”

Sure doesn't sound like it, bud. Picking up my shit not a noble enough assignment for you?

From the sound of the reply over the phone, suit-boy’s boss wasn't buying his dedication either.

“Look, Samuels, we’d all rather be in Queens fighting an invasion of giant explosion spitting monsters with the Avengers, but somebody has to hold the fort. Today it’s you, so do your job”

“Yes, ma'am,” Samuels sulked and hung up with a glare at Sergeant, who’d been sitting quite obediently on the other end of the leash he was holding, thank you very much. “I’ll just stay here and walk Captain America’s fucking dog.”

Well, gee, don’t I feel loved?

Grudgingly, Sergeant let Samuels tug on his leash and start to lead him down the Avengers’ complex’s main road, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Steve was in a fight? Without him? What if he needed cuddles?

Samuels opened a video on his phone and Sergeant wandered over close enough to push his arm down and see news crews filming Steve and the rest of his movie-watching friends in costume and fighting against giants with lots of teeth and claws in a neighborhood of Queens that Sergeant recognized.

“Get away from me!” Samuels bitched, obviously not wanting fur on his clean black suit. 

Okay.

Sergeant bolted, going from a standing position to a full out sprint in an instant. Caught unprepared, though only super soldiers, demi-gods, and weird purple freaks could hold him back anyway, Samuels went flying and got dragged across a good hundred feet of fresh spring grass before he managed to let go of the leash. By the time he found his phone again, Sergeant was well out of sight and already off the complex grounds. 

He didn't keep track of how long it took to get to Queens. He also didn't run all the way. He wasn't an idiot. He hitched a ride down the highway in the open space between a semi and its trailer until he was close enough to the city to jump onto the subway at its most outlying station. Then he rode the rest of the way with his leash coiled up and held in his mouth. He had to change trains a couple of times, but nobody stopped him. Mostly that was because they were New Yorkers and if they paid attention to him at all, it was because they were filming him on their phones. Partially it was because the one transit cop who tried to take hold of his leash decided it was a bad idea when Sergeant bared a few teeth at him. 

The subway stop he got off at was a few blocks away from where he’d seen the fight on Samuel’s phone. Not sure if the fight would be over by now and not really caring as long as Steve was still there, Sergeant waited for the doors to the train to open and bolted off.

That was nearly a disaster. Apparently the fight WAS still going on and the subway was being used to evacuate people. He galloped out into a massive crowd of nearly panicking, definitely angry, outrageously yelling people, and managed to bowl over the first half dozen of them. Fortunately, they were rude assholes jumping the queue over the sick and injured who should have been first to get on the train, so he didn’t feel bad about it.

Sergeant held his leash in his teeth so nobody could step on it and wormed his way through the crowds, trying to not focus on how frightened many of them smelled. Distantly, he could hear explosions and the ground all around them shook, which just increased the alarm, considering they were underground. 

People were understandably focused on their own problems, but his passage didn’t go entirely unnoticed. Sergeant was nearly at the stairs up to the surface when a man’s hand gripped his collar. Immediately, he dropped his leash, twisted his head around, and closed his teeth around the man’s bare wrist.

He didn’t bite. He was very careful not to break the skin at all, but he did let a low, dangerous growl sound in his throat as he looked up at the man. He seemed kind, the sort of person who’d try to rescue a loose dog headed towards danger and who’d make a good master, but Sergeant had to get to Steve. His eyes widened in fear at Sergeant’s grip and he let go. 

So did Sergeant. He gave the man an apologetic lick, grabbed up his leash again, and continued on his way, up the somewhat less crowded stairs and past a few directing cops who hadn’t expected him.

The street looked uncomfortably like a war zone. There were cars on fire and buildings turned to rubble, most of which was scattered across the streets, slowing the police and other emergency responders. The sky was black with clouds and there was lightning crashing down from it, enough to make Sergeant’s fur stand straight up and focused on a single location a few blocks away. 

That had to be where Steve was. Sergeant ran towards it, dodging through the carnage that, as he travelled, also included the corpses of not just the occasional person, but also of huge, twisted monsters, multi-limbed giants like something out of some kind of fever dream. They looked powerful enough to have caused the damage he saw and they reeked, twisted and wrong in a way even worse than the purple freak. 

He saw the purple freak a moment later, floating in mid air and firing a yellow beam of energy from his forehead as if that was a normal thing. He saw Thor as well, along with Natasha and Tony and the others, all of them fighting against the stinky giants. 

He also saw Steve, standing in the middle of them with his shield like that was any kind of weapon, though from the way he flung it around, apparently it was. He was actually holding his own pretty well, but Sergeant hadn’t come all this way just to watch. He’d come to provide necessary cuddling, and that wasn’t really possible until the freakos were gone. 

There was a giant coming up behind Steve while he was busy bashing the one in front of him to death. It opened its mouth impossibly wide, throat glowing with the energy that must have caused all the blown up cars and buildings, so Sergeant raced up behind it before it could barf it out and hamstrung it with his teeth. The giant shrieked, trying to spin around at the same time that its leg was giving out on it, and Sergeant leaped up, sank his teeth again into the monster’s throat, and ripped it out. It crashed over backwards, Sergeant on top, and he lifted his head to see Steve staring at him in baffled amazement.

“Sergeant?” He gasped.

Hiya, Stevie! Tail wagging, Sergeant jumped over the dead monster’s head and ran over to jump up and give Steve a good hello lick. Miss me?

Steve sputtered and pushed him away, spitting in disgust.

Oops, um, sorry about the gore?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive my almost total lack of knowledge of New York.


	10. Chapter 10

Fighting with Steve was fun. Not that Sergeant had to do much fighting himself; he just stuck close to Steve’s side and whenever one of those things tried to sneak up behind him or throw a building at him or something, Sergeant would bark a warning. He only needed to hamstring two more of them, so that Steve could more easily take them down with his shield.

There were a lot of the creatures, but their numbers weren’t limitless and after Sergeant heard Natasha announce over Steve’s comms that she’d found and shut down the weird science cult group of whatevers that was their source, they stopped showing up at all and the team was able to take out the remainder.

Tired but happy, Sergeant tried to lick Steve’s face, even while the man used a bottle of water and a mostly clean towel to wash the gunk out of his ruff and off his face.

Sam landed next to them. “What is Sergeant doing here?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” Steve admitted.

Saving the day, punk. Saving the day.

“He proved most worthy in battle,” Thor noted, joining them. “A noble beast and fearless.”

“No shit,” Sam said. “Braver than me. I thought I was going to piss myself a few times.”

Steve scratched wonderfully behind Sergeant’s ears, giving him a serious look. “I think he was just protecting me. Is that it, boy? You were trying to protect me?”

Well, duh.

“Captain!” A new voice shouted and Steve stood back up as a news crew who’d been too stupid or suicidal to stay under cover hurried over and shoved a microphone under his nose. “Care to give a statement about the battle here today?”

Sergeant didn’t bother to listen to Steve’s answer, panting to cool himself as he looked around. There were giant bodies all over the place, one of them close enough that he could pad to the end of his leash length and cock a leg.

Oh yeah, that’s better.

“Um, yes, this is Sergeant, he’s a rescue dog I was given for Christmas.” Steve tugged on the leash and Sergeant happily padded back over, given they were now talking about him.

“He’s huge,” the reporter gushed. “And you call him Sergeant? Sergeant what?”

“Thunderpaws,” Clint tossed in with a grin. Steve gave him a look and he returned an innocent shrug. “What? You’ve heard him running in the halls.”

“What is he?” The reporter continued. “A wolf?”

“A husky shepherd, we think,” Steve said. “He’s a good dog.”

Yes, I am.

“And you’ve trained him to fight beside you?”

“Um...”

Sergeant ignored Steve’s waffling answer to that one. Something had caught his senses, a scent on the air different from the reek of the giants or the sweat of the team. Something under the dust and rubble of one of the nearby buildings. He lifted his nose and inhaled, but he wasn’t sure, not yet. 

“Sergeant?” Steve said as Sergeant walked to the end of his leash and pulled, sniffing hard. Steve gave him slack, following, and Sergeant followed his nose up to the building’s remains. Half of it was in ruins, burned and still smoking, but he could smell other scents underneath it. Upholstery, carpeting, the wood of furniture, clothing, metal from kitchen utensils and appliances, plastics from toys. Skin, flesh, blood; living and flowing. He listened and could hear beating hearts. The sound of them sent a frightened shudder of remembrance through him and his tail tucked unbidden between his legs.

Aw, fuck my life. Not again.

Sergeant whined and started to dig at the rubble, his big paws shifting dirt and rocks, pushing at bigger pieces and flipping them behind him. Immediately, Steve was beside him. “Help me!” he called and the other Avengers were there, helping him to dig, and with their augmented and inhuman strength, it was only fifteen minutes before they’d uncovered a living survivor, a woman trapped but still breathing, with her living children huddled beneath her.

That was how Sergeant Thunderpaws made his debut on the national stage, as the Avengers’ official mascot and rescue dog, when he found over a hundred survivors for the dig crews to save in a single evening and night.


	11. Chapter 11

The best part of being the Avengers’ mascot was he got to go on missions with Steve, instead of getting left behind all of the time.

The worst part of being the Avengers’ mascot was he had to actually do a lot of goddamned work. 

It wasn’t that he minded sniffing out trapped and injured people after an Avengers’ battle. He kind of liked that; actually, he really liked that, provided he found them alive. The times he didn’t were downright fucking depressing, to the point where he found himself working manically to find everybody, dragging Stevie all over a battlefield to the point where he sometimes forgot to give the man the kisses he deserved for up to hours at a time. Steve never minded, but Sergeant felt like shit whenever he realized it. He was supposed to be the man’s comfort animal and here he was being shit at it.

Another thing that he didn’t quite know if he liked about working was the fact that Steve was actually using him as a comfort animal, but not for himself! He was brought along to every battle, but he got left in the quinjet until after the fight, and then if he wasn’t sniffing out trapped victims, he was being led over to traumatized people and especially kids so he could be hugged too tight, get his ears pulled, and end up with tears and snot all through his fur. Steve seemed to think he was good with people. It wasn’t that he wasn’t, he just wasn’t going to be a total asshole to someone who was having a shitty day. So he got to spend a lot of time dealing with sore ears and snot. Lucky him.

The public loved it. Or so Sergeant gathered. According to Steve, he had a Twitter account someone sent up to him and he had something like five hundred thousand followers. Which… really meant nothing to him, honestly. What the fuck was Twitter? Or Instagram? Or whatever the hell else he was apparently trending or whatever on? Steve didn’t seem to really be sure either, so Sergeant didn’t worry about it too much.

He even got to go on television once, padding out onto a stage at Steve’s side where the lights were so bright he couldn’t see a damn thing and the audience was so loud he couldn’t really hear either. 

“Welcome, Captain America and Sergeant Thunderpaws!” The host exclaimed. “Thank you for coming!” She was a smiling, short haired blonde woman who gave Steve a big hug and Sergeant a decent enough ear scratching that he wished he’d bothered to pay attention earlier when Steve said what her name was. It was Helen, or Felon, or Melon, or something like that. 

“Thank you, Ms Degeneres,” Steve said with a smile. “It’s nice of you to have us both here.”

“Sit!” Melon insisted. “Everyone wants to hear everything there is to hear about you and America’s newest and furriest superhero.”

Steve laughed and sat down on the couch next to her chair, so Sergeant hopped up onto the couch beside him. 

Steve gave him an exasperated look. “Sergeant, down.”

Fuck, no. I’m a star.

“Down,” Steve repeated, pointing at the floor. The audience and Melon were all laughing, so Sergeant just flopped over onto his side with his head in Steve’s lap and looked up at Steve with a doggy grin. The audience applauded.

Steve winced at Melon in apology. “I’m sorry. We’re still working on keeping off the furniture. He thinks he’s people.”

No, YOU’RE still working on it. And I AM people.

She waved it away. “It’s fine. I’ve had worse interviewees up there.” The audience laughed again. “So, Cap. Sergeant Thunderpaws. The things he’s done in the last few months, they’re as incredible as anything any of the Avengers have accomplished, at least in this dog lover’s opinion. Tell us, where did you find him? And how do I get one just like him?”

Steve laughed. “Well, he was a Christmas present, actually, from Black Widow and Hawkeye. I’d been wanting a dog for a while, but I’d been waffling on it actually getting one. They found him on Christmas Eve in a high kill shelter in New York.” He reached down and scratched under Sergeant’s chin. “Apparently, he was next on the list to be, well, you know. I’m just so glad my friends found him in time.”

Sergeant didn’t bother to listen to the rest of the conversation, rolling onto his back so Steve could reach his chest and belly. It was wonderful. The lights in the studio were too hot and the air kind of stifling, but Steve smelled happy and anytime he paid attention to Sergeant was a good time. 

Eventually, Melon drew his attention back to her. “Sergeant,” she cooed. “To finish up, we’ve got presents for you.”

Presents? For me?

Sergeant flipped over onto his paws and stood up, walking over Steve’s lap - and only briefly stepping on his balls - to get within range of whatever Melon was offering. 

“In honour of your service to the Avengers,” she told him in a formal tone that was really ruined by the dimples and the smile, “we’ve got some proper superhero gear for you.”

The audience cheered as she held up a harness with pouches on the side and a crest on the front, all in red and marked with the emblem of the Avengers. 

“Wow,” Steve said. 

“He can carry water in the pouches,” Melon said, “or medical supplies. Whatever is needed.”

“Thank you! That’s incredibly thoughtful!”

Sergeant sniffed it. Huh, I guess it’s okay. 

“Next,” she went on, “We have a year’s supply of UberDog Gourmet Dog Treats!”

Now you’re talking! Sergeant’s tail started wagging at that one, especially when she fed him a few samplers. He was so eager for them that he might just have stepped on Steve’s balls again. 

“And last of all,” Melon said, “just for you, the prototype of a new toy coming out for the Avenger’s line next Christmas. Your first Christmas with Captain America.” With that, she held up a plush toy dog in a red harness that looked like a miniature, slightly lopsided version of Sergeant himself. The audience went nuts. 

The cheering went through the rest of the interview, which was down to the hugging part, before Steve led Sergeant backstage again. Steve smiled down at him. “You were a good boy out there,” he told him. “Except for the couch.”

Of course I was.

They headed home then, where Steve spent the whole evening brushing and playing fetch and tug with him, though he didn’t give him nearly enough of those free treats. They belonged to HIM, damnit.

At least the plush turned out to be delicious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies to Ellen Degeneres....


	12. Chapter 12

Tanks were rolling down the streets; huge, bulky things that made the ground rumble underneath them and the ruins of already shelled buildings fall inwards even more.

There were bodies in the streets and in the ruins, but there were living people hiding in the buildings as well, both civilians and soldiers hunched over in silence as the tanks progressed, their turrets turning, always looking for a target. Dozens of them. Too many to fight. Too many to do anything except die against.

He crouched behind a broken wall right in the middle of their path, clutching his rifle, and feeling his heart pounding fit to burst as he tried to think of how in the world he was ever going to stop them.

“Sergeant? Sergeant. Come on, boy, come on, wake up, sweetheart. Wake up. It’s okay.”

Sergeant woke with a start, his heart thundering with adrenaline so that it took him a second to realize where he was and that he was safe. 

He was in the quinjet, lying in the main bay where he’d been while it made its way home through international skies, sleeping the way the Avengers had mostly been sleeping, though they had sleeping bags and he just had his fur. He didn’t know if it was because of the vibration through the floor or what, but he’d had a nightmare. Steve crouched beside him, sleep tousled and tired, gently stroking his neck and scratching his ears. 

“There you go,” he said in a soft voice. “You were just having a nightmare. That’s all. My poor, sweet boy.” 

Sergeant stared at Steve for a moment and then crawled over to him, close to his chest with his nose shoved underneath his chin.

Um, can I maybe have the hugs this time?

Steve’s arms wrapped around him. “Hey,” he soothed. “Shh. Good boy. Shh.” He scratched his fur, hugging him close.

“Fuck off and go away,” mumbled one of the nearby sleeping bags.

“Sorry,” Steve whispered. He gave Sergeant another hug and stood, making his way through the minefield of sleeping bags towards the cockpit instead of returning to his own bag. It had been a long battle, not that Sergeant knew much about who the enemy had been, since he’d spent most of the fight in the quinjet until the rescue phase afterwards. The team had been all worn out and well ready to sleep while they crossed the Atlantic back towards New York. Steve, however, had never needed as much rest as the others.

Sergeant padded after Steve, following him into the cockpit to find him already settling himself in the copilot’s seat beside Clint, who was sprawled in the pilot chair with one leg up on the console.

Sergeant still did not feel up to full on his quota of cuddles, so he crawled determinedly up into Steve’s lap and settled down with his head on his shoulder despite the man’s groans and attempts to get him down.

“Sergeant, you’re too big to be a lap dog!”

Clint looked over and grinned. “Doesn’t seem like he cares much, Cap.” 

“I’ve noticed.” Steve gave up, other than adjusting Sergeant a bit so he wasn’t pressing against any sensitive bits, and Sergeant settled against him with a quiet sigh. Steve stroked his back, holding him close. “Good boy,” he whispered.

Clint was quiet for a while, not doing anything to keep the quinjet up and going in the right direction somehow. He didn’t know how it worked. It could have run on either hamsters or magic as far as Sergeant was concerned. 

“Nat and I’ve noticed that your puppy there seems to be doing you a lot of good,” Clint said at last.

“Oh?” Steve said and his hand stopped its stroking. Sergeant wriggled against him and he started to pet him again. Sergeant was pretty sure he could quite happily go to sleep again like this, even if he was nearly sitting on his tail with his hind legs sticking out underneath the chair arm and only Steve keeping him from sliding out after them. 

“Everyone’s noticed it,” Clint went on. “You look to be a lot happier.”

“I didn’t know I was unhappy.”

Clint snorted. “Yeah, right. Trust me, Cap. I know unhappy. You could have been the fucking poster child. That dog’s been awesome for you.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed after a long moment, almost reluctantly, though there was nothing reluctant about the kiss he pressed to the top of Sergeant’s head. “Thanks for finding him for me.” 

“You’re welcome.”

“If you want to go catch some shuteye, I can watch the controls for you,” Steve said. 

“Okay.” Clint stood up. “The autopilot is on. If anything starts beeping or blipping, yell for me.”

Steve sat there after Clint left, still holding Sergeant in his lap. He was overheated next to the man’s overly hot body, not entirely comfortable seated on his tail, and he felt so safe he never wanted to move again.

Oh yeah. This is the life. You’re stuck with me now, punk.

He yawned wide and went back to sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

This time, New York was under attack by someone who apparently called himself Mole Man, a stout, ugly little guy with an army of humanoid followers who had grey skin and eyes like goggles.

Sergeant couldn’t say it was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen, but it definitely came close. 

On the quinjet, Sergeant sat in the pilot’s seat and watched the news report of the fight on the overhead screens. It had taken quite a bit of paw smashing on the console to get the screens to activate and he’d even achieved lift off once, but now he could watch the fight in full colour.

The news reporters had gotten smarter. Rather than running into the middle of an Avengers’ fight themselves, they were sending drones equipped with cameras now, which they took as liberty to get far closer than they ever had before. Of course, when one of them zoomed in close enough to count the Hulk’s nose hairs and was immediately smashed out of the air, they did back off a bit. 

The Avengers were horribly outnumbered in this one. The grey minion types were everywhere and while they weren’t terrific fighters, they kept the team from getting close to their leader while he ranted something about human drilling threatening his subterranean kingdom and how he’d make them all pay. He really didn’t look like any sort of fighter either, but given he was riding on the back of a giant worm with a mouth full of thousands of teeth, he was kind of hard to argue with. 

Sergeant kept an eye on Steve, shifting from paw to paw as he watched the man’s really lousy self-preservation skills in action.

How the hell did he survive this long?

The quinjet shook. Sergeant gave a little woof and looked around in surprise, only to have it shake again and suddenly sink a foot or so. Immediately, all of the warning lights and buzzers on the console went off at once, as if he hadn’t figured out he was abruptly neck deep in shit all by himself.

When he’d paw smashed the quinjet into taking flight before, he hadn't intended to, but he did remember what he’d done, planning to ‘accidently’ do it when Steve was on board, just for shits and giggles. He whapped his paw down in just the right pattern as the ground gave way underneath him and the quinjet’s engines fired, lifting the vehicle up a few metres.

He couldn’t exactly just land where he’d been, however, and steering was a whole different matter. Sergeant grabbed the steering control with his teeth and pulled back as hard as he could. The quinjet shot straight upwards, nose to the sky, flipped over onto its back, kept going, and when he didn’t quite manage to level it out in time - what could you expect when he didn’t have hands? - came to a new landing on its roof in the middle of a parking lot two blocks away, right on top of someone’s mustang. 

This is not my fault. I’m not taking the blame for this. 

Sergeant squirmed himself upright, made his way to the hatch, and keyed the exit code he wasn’t supposed to know with his nose. It opened, taking out the ferrari next to the mustang, and the firemen rushing to help whoever was in the crash of the Avengers’ quinjet stopped as they saw the big dog come out instead.

Hiya! How are you doing? This is not my fault.

Leaving them to search the quinjet for anyone else and try to figure out how there wasn’t anybody, he ran towards the main source of the fighting, now only a few blocks away. 

As always, most people had managed to escape, but there were a few who hadn’t been able to. Sergeant thundered down the street, one of the news drones zooming in on him, and just because, he put some extra pizzazz into it when he sprang high into the air and sailed over a sinkhole in the middle of the street that was nearly ten feet across. On the other side, he bowled through a group of the pasty grey invaders who were advancing on a family who hadn’t been able to get away because of the hole, bodychecking them into cars and street lamps as he did. They were lightweight. Body checks worked really well.

He didn’t bite. He’d made himself a promise a long time ago that he’d never bite. 

He skidded to a halt in front of the family, two women and their children, with his tail wagging in a friendly way.

Well, hiya!

“Sergeant Thunderpaws!” The kids shrieked, and darted away from their parents’ protection to hug him, proving that kids are really up on who’s who in the world and about as dumb when it comes to self preservation as Steve. 

He led them out of there, the kids hanging onto his harness and the parents following behind, both of them pretty shaken up given they were trusting to the leadership of a dog. Still, he got them to a police line without too much trouble.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” one of the cops told him and immediately looked embarrassed that he had.

Never gonna live that one down, dude. From some of the looks his coworkers were giving him, he’d still be hearing about it at his retirement dinner.

Sergeant bolted back towards the fighting the second his harness was released and before someone else could decide to grab him and ‘keep him safe’ or some bullshit. Or try to steal him. Someone had tried that once at a parade. He just dragged him to Steve, who hadn’t been impressed.

The team was focused on taking out Mole Man, Thor, Vision, Iron Man, and Scarlet Witch in the air, Steve, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Hulk on the ground. There were more of the worms out now, not just the one being ridden, however, and they seemed pretty tough. At least the team had only managed to bring down one of them so far, and of course the grey dudes were everywhere, even if they were wimps.

“You won’t take me!” Mole Man was shouting as Sergeant ran towards Steve. “Instead, I will be the one to take you!”

The ground heaved underneath them. Sergeant yelped as he was bounced a good five feet in the air and barely managed to land back on his four paws. The ground based Avengers had all lost their footing in the sudden attack, except for Hulk, who’d jumped clear when it happened and was now bellowing from a nearby building.

Steve picked himself up and saw Sergeant, his brow tensing in worry. Stupid punk. Sergeant started towards him again. As if there was anywhere else he should be.

The ground gave out from under them. Steve and the others dropped into darkness, along with all of the goons around them. A bit farther out, Sergeant found himself yelping in terror as he slid helplessly along a sloping piece of road that was rapidly going vertical, all of his terrified cries recorded by some fucking drone for the world to see before the end of the road passed by underneath his paws and he tumbled backwards after the others into darkness with a howl.


	14. Chapter 14

Sergeant woke up lying on a concrete floor, a heavy chain around his neck. He lifted his head, but it took a dizzy moment before he could sort out exactly what he was seeing.

He was in a long, rectangular room, chained to a wall in a corner. On the wall opposite him, Steve, Natasha, and Clint were also chained, though their bonds were formed by some sort of energy that held them spread-eagled in midair. At a long console on the same wall as Sergeant but out of range, Mole Man was ranting at his prisoners and at a news drone that must have been knocked into the sinkhole along with them.

Sergeant didn’t know where they were, but they didn’t smell like they were underground anymore to him.

“…Mole Man will reign supreme over you paltry surface dwellers!” The portly little asshole of the day was ranting to the camera. “Soon you will cower before my might!”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Clint said audibly and Natasha smirked.

“This isn’t going to get you anything you want,” Steve said. Whatever those energy bonds were made of, he couldn’t get free of them, and Sergeant guessed that the console had to be where they were being controlled from.

“Oh, my demands will be met,” Mole Man raved. “I’ll prove it to all of you. For every hour that they aren’t, another one of you Avengers dies!” He came around the console, brandishing a gun. “Starting now!”

He was going to shoot one of them? Steve! Sergeant threw himself to the end of his chain, barking madly.

“Sergeant!” Steve shouted. “Down!”

No fucking way! He might shoot you!

Mole Man looked at him. “You’ll do for a start,” he said, pointing the gun right between Sergeant’s eyes.

Oh shit, he thought, right before the man fired.

It took a long time for Sergeant to come back to awareness after that. He’d moved enough that the bullet hit him in the shoulder instead of the head, but he’d still been hit pretty hard. Sergeant woke but just lay there for a minute, assessing all of his hurts.

Oww…

He couldn’t smell Mole Man in the room anymore, though his lingering scent said he’d been gone less than an hour. There was something about that… He could smell the Avengers. He could hear them as well, muttering and swearing under their breath and moving in small increments, trying to break loose.

Sergeant’s eyes opened and his head snapped up, tongue lolling as he struggled to get up and just ended up panting against the pain in his shoulder. He’d heal, eventually; getting neutered every time he got dumped into a shelter would suck a whole lot more if he didn’t keep growing his balls back, but he still had the bullet in there and he felt weak from blood loss. If he’d taken it in the head, he might just have ended up being killed.

“Sergeant!” Steve shouted.

"Holy shit," Clint added.

Sergeant looked over at him and wagged his tail. Steve looked and smelled grief stricken; dried tears on his face and burns on his wrists and ankles obvious from his trying to free himself. But now he was sporting a huge smile as well.

“Good boy!” He stammered. “Good, good boy!”

Yup, that’s me. Ow.

Sergeant licked at his injury, but the taste of blood had all sorts of bad memories associated with it and it hurt like a motherfucker anyway, so he laid off with that and looked around. Mole Man was definitely gone and he’d just left him lying in a really gross pool of now congealed blood.

Oh, nice. Like Steve needed to see that. Asshole.

He’d be back soon, Sergeant remembered, ready to shoot the next Avenger. The others had to be looking for them, but what were the chances they’d find them in time? Sergeant looked behind him. Yeah, nope. The bad guy hadn’t conveniently unchained him after he shot him. It was a simple latch holding the chain too. Just the sort that required thumbs to get open.

A horrible dread filled him and he looked back at Steve, now so happy just to see that he wasn’t dead after all. If he didn’t want to risk seeing Steve shot when short and psycho came back, he had to get free and either free them or call for help. If he was going to get free, he had to shift to human. Which meant Steve would see him. He’d know what he was, that Sergeant lied to him about everything. That he was a monster. Sergeant knew far too well what happened when people found out what he really was.

He’d hate him. He’d hate him forever, but if he didn’t, that freak might come back and shoot Steve next and Sergeant would never be able to live with himself if that happened. He realized he was yelping loudly and repeatedly when he heard Steve’s voice soothingly calling to him. 

“It’s okay, boy. I promise everything’ll be okay. I promise it will be.” Steve was fighting against his bonds again. He was going to break his arms before he broke his restraints.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m so sorry. Sergeant fixed the sight of Steve in his mind, wished that his last view of him wasn’t of the man in distress, and then sucked in his breath and forced the change.


	15. Chapter 15

Luna’s motherfucking left tit, that hurts!

Shapeshifting with a bullet wound didn’t miraculously repair the damage, it just yanked it around in lots of painful ways and got it to bleed lots more. Sergeant achieved human form and crouched on the floor with his useless arm hanging by his side and his forehead pressed against the linoleum, one gasped breath away from passing out for who knew how long.

He couldn’t afford it. He had to move now, before he did pass out, or the bad guy came back, or Steve recovered his voice and said something horrible to him. So far, the only thing he’d heard from the three prisoners was Clint’s almost reverent “Holy shit!” 

He unlocked the collar and pushed himself up, swaying nude on his bare feet and covered in blood from his shoulder and down his entire torso. He paused to cough blood onto the floor and lurched towards the console. Luckily, it was only a few steps away and he was able to fall against it and slide around behind it without killing himself or blacking out again. 

“Sergeant?” Steve whimpered. Sergeant had never heard him make such a sound, not even in his nightmares, and he couldn’t stop himself from looking up. Steve had stopped fighting his restraints and was staring at him with an expression that was just so confused. 

“--” Sergeant started and made a whimpering noise of his own before he looked back down at the console.

This thing doesn’t make any fucking sense.

It didn’t. It was nothing but keyboards and screens and buttons that did who the fuck knew what. He didn’t even know where to start. 

“In the corner,” Natasha called, her voice remarkably calm, all things considered.

Sergeant looked in pretty much every corner before he saw what she meant. Their communicators had been dumped on the console and those he did know how to use from watching Steve. 

Did he even know how to speak anymore? He picked one up and turned it on. “K-” he managed and coughed painfully, hawking up some more blood to clear his throat before he tried again. Steve made another sound that he didn’t want to try and interpret.

“H-help,” he managed. “C-calling… help.” 

Immediately, Iron Man’s voice sounded. “Who is this? This is an Avengers only channel.”

Who the fuck did he think it was?

“N-nobody,” he coughed. “Avengers here.”

“Right. Great. Triangulating your location. Gotcha. We’ll be there in two minutes.”

Awesome. That gave him two minutes to get out of here. Sergeant dropped the communicator onto the console and pushed himself back upright, where he immediately swayed dizzily again.

Okay, maybe he could get out in two minutes.

Just then, the door opened and in came Mole Man in mid rant, followed by a dozen of his goons.

“Your surface media is insane!” He raged. “All they do is scream for my head!”

“Shouldn’t have shot Captain America’s dog, dude,” Clint told him.

Before he could yell a retort, one of the goons spotted Sergeant. It screeched a warning and for a frozen second, everybody stared at each other.

Sergeant didn’t know what Mole Dude was thinking, but HE was taking advantage of the time to weigh his chances. 

Lemme see, I’m butt naked, bleeding, down one arm, and the best threat I can manage in this form is to threaten to piss on him. Or I can shift to dog and, yup, threaten to piss on him. Fuck my life. 

That left him only one other option left. One he hadn’t used in a lifetime. More like two, maybe three. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do ever do it again either, but he was out of choices and it wasn’t like Steve could hate him even more.

Less than two minutes. I gotta hold out for less than two minutes.

Mole Man started to turn towards him with his gun and Sergeant forced another change. It was quicker than the others, being something only halfway between the two, but it sure as fuck didn’t hurt any less.

Fur sprouted outwards across his body, a muzzle pushing out from his mouth and filling with pointed teeth. His ears moved up to the top of his head, wolf-like, and his hind legs bent the way a wolf’s would, while claws tipped each of his furred but still human fingers. In seconds, he’d become the monster he preferred to pretend he wasn’t.

Mole Man screamed and Sergeant exploded over the top of the console at him. His left arm was still useless, hanging nearly limp at his side, but he had adrenaline and rage on his side. Anger came easily in this shape; it came way too easily.

He crashed in amongst the goons and sent them flying as he lunged at their leader. Mole Man was already running, screeching at the top of his lungs and firing wildly back over his shoulder as he did. He pretty much only hit his own people, but he gave Sergeant an instant of hesitation and the surviving goons piled on top of him, tripping him up just by sheer numbers and hanging agonizingly on his wounded arm.

I can’t keep this up!Already he could feel his adrenaline running out and a roaring sound in his ears. If he let them push him down, he wasn’t ever going to get up again.

Fuck this noise.

With all the energy he had left, Sergeant surged up and threw the goons off of him with a howl of pure outrage, head tilted back and jaws gaping wide. 

“Sergeant!” Steve shouted and Sergeant looked at him. He just couldn’t help himself.

That was when the roof exploded and suddenly Thor was dropping into the room. He looked straight at Sergeant.

Uh oh.

Lightning slammed into Sergeant, burning his fur and the skin underneath as it threw him back into the wall behind the console and right through it. It was just thin metal, part of some sort of multi-sectioned quonset hut, and he went rolling across a weedy, gravel lot while Steve screamed somewhere behind him.

By the time he finished rolling, he was a dog again, half dead and gasping. Bad leg held up to his burned chest and tongue lolling, he hobbled away from there as fast as he could, his tail firmly tucked between his legs.


	16. Chapter 16

I want to go home.

Sergeant had found a place to hole up in an alley near the waterfront, underneath an overhang and behind a dumpster. The smell wasn’t particularly good, but it was dry and quiet, and near enough to an output vent from the subways that it was warm at night as well.

He hated it because it wasn’t his nice plush dog bed, but he didn’t have any other options. Stray dogs didn’t exactly have a lot of luxury waiting for them, especially when they were injured.

His shoulder had stopped bleeding, but the presence of the bullet in the wound was slowing down any healing while it worked its way out at what was apparently a glacial pace. Worse, it looked like, when Thor blasted him through the wall, he’d broken his left foreleg in a bunch of places and he wasn’t sure at all if it was going to heal correctly.

Thanks a bunch, Thor. You just had to shoot at the scary looking thing instead of the guy you KNEW was an enemy. I’m so gonna pee on your hammer when I get a chance.

Sergeant closed his eyes. If he got a chance. Who was he kidding? He wouldn’t be getting anywhere near to Thor, or any of the rest of them.

Steve…

All he could do for now was sleep during the day, heal as much as he could, and then limp out at night to look for food and water. It truly sucked the cosmic wang, but he’d been worse off before.

He slept for most of a morning days after the fight; he wasn’t sure how long it had been, but he suspected it was close to a week, and woke at the sound of voices coming towards him.

“It wouldn’t be this way, come on! This is a dead end alley!”

“Well, it’s not in the other direction. I’m not letting this Dratini get away!”

What the fuck’s a Dratini? There was nobody in this alley but him.

“If there’s a crazy wino in here, I’m leaving you behind!”

Two very young women came into view, both of them walking along and staring at their phones. They were nearly parallel to him when the first one stopped, her shoulders slumping, still staring at her phone. “It’s gone!”

Her friend smirked at her. “Told you.”

“It’s got to be somewhere! If it despawned, I’m gonna scream.”

The friend didn’t answer, her eyes wide as she stared at Sergeant. He tried to look harmless, not really wanting to scare the two of them, or have them call animal control. He was a hell of a lot less adoptable right now.

“Kimmie. Kimmie.” She smacked her friend with each repeat of her name.

“What?” Kimmie shouted. The friend pointed and Kimmie shrieked when she saw what she was staring at. 

“Holy shit! That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!”

“It’s not a rat! That’s Sergeant! You know, Captain America’s missing dog? The one they’ve had on the news all week?”

“Oh shit!”

Oh shit. Time to go. 

He levered himself up and hobbled out of his hiding place, intending to pass the girls and get out of the alley so he could find somewhere else to lie down.

Immediately, they both blocked his way, arms spread and looks of concern on their face. “No, sweetie,” Kimmie said, “you have to stay here. You’re hurt and your daddy’s looking for you.”

I’ll bet he is.

He tried to get past them, but they were determined and he didn’t have the strength to run. He just ended up herded back into his corner, too weak to run, too scared to move.

The girls crouched in front of him, patting his head and talking to him, which was nice. They called the police, which he was less thrilled about, and then they posted their discovery on Facebook, which apparently made the world blow up. That part sucked.

“Easy, Sergeant,” crooned a volunteer from an animal rescue organization. Her voice was soft and soothing and not only had she brought him fresh water to drink, she was feeding him chunks of cooked hamburger, which made her one of his new best friends. The cops were back behind her and the other few rescuers allowed in, keeping the rest of the crowds and the paparazzi out. To their dismay, the girls had been led out with them.

Sergeant thumped his tail and let the veterinarian beside her look at his shoulder. 

“How does it look?” the volunteer asked, still using that wonderful voice. Sergeant took another piece of meat from her fingers. 

“We have to get him back to the clinic for x-rays, but he’ll need surgery.” The vet stroked his head. 

Better not cut my balls off this time.

There was roar from the crowd outside the alley and a mad rush of camera flashes. Sergeant had a sudden horrible feeling of what that meant before a tall, built blond man was let through the police cordon and ran towards them.

Stevie…

The two women stood to meet him as Sergeant shuffled back farther into his corner, his heart pounding. What did Steve want? To ‘deal’ with him? He whimpered and hid his nose under his tail.

There was a quiet discussion as the vet and the volunteer filled Steve in on what they’d learned and he nodded and thanked them before they stepped back and he hunkered down, his wrists resting on his knees.

“Hey, Sergeant.”

Sergeant peeked at him through the fur of his tail and whimpered.

Steve took a deep breath. “Look, Sergeant, I know you’re hurt and you must be scared, but I want you to know, nobody’s mad at you. That was a big secret you dumped on us.” He gave a small laugh. “That was a REALLY big secret, but it doesn’t change anything. Everyone wants you to come home. I want you to come home.”

He wanted him to come home? Out of everything, Sergeant had never expected that. Everything he’d ever experienced before told him he COULDN’T expect that. He lifted his head and just stared at the man, disbelieving.

Steve gave him a little smile. He looked worried, smelled stressed, like he hadn’t been taking care of himself. “How about we go home, let you get better, and after that we’ll worry about everything else?”

We can do that?

Tentatively, Sergeant’s tail gave a little wag and he stretched his neck out towards him. Steve put his hand out to meet him and he gave it a soft lick. Steve’s smile was brilliant. 

The women brought him a blanket and Steve wrapped him in it before he lifted him in his arms and carried him out. It hurt to be moved and the camera flashes sucked, but he didn’t care. He was going home after all.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the angst of the last few chapters, have a stoned dog.

His vision had narrowed down to a white tunnel, so that all he could see was just this little bitty circle of everything, which mostly consisted of Steve’s face. Honestly, he was good with that.

Wow, Stevie, you’re so pretty. You’ve got two heads.

Steve jerked his head up and out of reach of his tongue. “Hey, quit it, no licking! I’m trying to carry you here!” 

Stevie, I feel so gooooood. Everything’s floating!

“Aww, how cute. A boy and his werewolf.”

Steve hiked Sergeant higher into his arms and smiled beyond where Sergeant could see with his narrowed vision. “Thanks for holding the door, Nat. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. You look like you have your hands full.”

Steve carried him out of sunlight and into a building. “Yeah. I don’t think he’s feeling his leg at all right now. The drugs they gave him are pretty strong.”

Weeeee!The world is all dancing around me! It’s so cooooool!

“Sergeant, stop squirming!”

I think I can fly!

Nat laughed. “And here I was worried he’d try to attack you.”

“Lick me to death, maybe. Here’s my apartment. Um, Nat, can you get my keys out of my jacket pocket for me? I’m afraid I’ll drop him.”

She shrugged and pushed the door open. “It’s unlocked. Everyone else is already inside.”

“Uh, what?”

He stepped inside and the people lounging inside all shouted a welcome. Tony met Steve at the door, brandishing a glass of liquor Sergeant wondered if he would be willing to share.

“Cap! Welcome home! What the hell is that thing wearing around its neck?”

“It’s called a cone of shame, Tony,” Clint said. “Haven’t you ever seen Up?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tony told him and swung back around to face Steve. “Why’s it wearing it?”

“It’s standard to put them on dogs when they’re hurt,” Steve grumped.

“But it’s not a dog.”

“Well, I didn’t tell them that. And stop calling him it!”

Sprawled off balance on his back in Steve’s arms, Sergeant looked at Tony through the wee window of vision his cone afforded. 

You’re short. Canna I have booze? Turning his head, he managed to aim his cone towards the glass in the man’s hand, and was quite pleased with himself when he succeeded in stretching his head close enough to stick his long tongue in the scotch glass and start lapping. Amused, Tony let him.

“Tony!” everyone shouted and Steve pulled him away.

Noooooo….. That was the good stuff…. Come back!

Sergeant started whimpering, but Steve wasn’t having any of it and carried him over to his dog bed, where he laid him down, careful with the lime cast that stretched from his paw all the way up to his shoulder. 

“There you go,” he said as he stroked his hand down Sergeant’s side and then took off the cone. “You don’t need this, do you?”

Oh my god, the world’s so big!

Steve looked at the people lounging around his small living room and dining area. “Not that I mind the company, but what are you all doing here?

“Werewolf watch,” Tony told him, took a swig of his scotch and obviously remembered who’d just been lapping it up when he made a sudden face. 

“He’s not dangerous,” Steve said, and he sounded somewhat dangerous himself. “We’ve gone over this a hundred times.”

“Forgive our caution, Captain,” Thor said. “It is rare indeed for the lore to speak of a skinwalker as being a safe creature.”

Sergeant rolled over onto his back. Look, Stevie! I can roll to the left. I can roll to the right!

“If he wanted to hurt me,” Steve sighed, “then he would have done it a long time ago.”

“We just don’t know his motives, man,” Sam cautioned. “And we care about you.”

“He saved us,” Steve reminded them. “He’s saved a lot of people. I can’t believe that he doesn’t genuinely care for others.”

I can lick my balls!

“Should we presume he is evil?” Vision asked. “He has shown no sign of being so.”

“Um,” Clint said.

“We just need to know more about him first!”

“What if he doesn’t want to tell us?” Wanda said. “He has remained quiet for a reason. He has chosen to be a dog instead of a man.”

Licky licky licky.

Clint stuck his hand up. “Hey, Cap, you might wanna put the cone back on him.”

Steve blinked. “What?” He looked. “Sergeant! That’s rude!”

Oh wow, the world went back to tunnel vision again. That made no sense at all.

“So does this mean we call it the Cone of Preventing Shame now?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more stoner dog chapter, since they're just too funny, and close a plot hole I didn't really intend to open.

The discussion continued.

Sergeant sprawled on his oh so nice plush doggie bed and let the sound just wash over him, his vision a nice little circle surrounded by white and his tail going in a non-stop thumpa-thumpa-thump against the floor.

If he turned his head and neck at just the right angle, he could see Steve, mouth turned downwards as he talked with the other people in the room. He looked unhappy. He shouldn’t be unhappy. The world was wuuuuuuuuuunderful.

Sergeant shrugged himself off the bed and onto the floor, flopped on his right side and inching his way towards Steve. It took some effort. If he didn’t lift his head every few inches, the cone around his neck would catch on the carpet and then the world would go dark if he kept pushing when the end capped against the floor. He didn’t like that. So he’d hold up his head and shrug forward, casted leg stuck upwards at an awkward angle, rest, then swing his head up in a wide arc to get it clear, and wiggle ahead some more, tail still whapping against the floor behind him.

Stealth puppy!

“What the hell is he doing?”

“Sergeant?”

Sergeant swung his head towards Steve at the sound of his name, but his angles were just a tad off and his narrowed gaze landed instead on Thor’s hammer, resting on the coffee table in the middle of the living area. Immediately, he forgot his original mission.

I was gonna pee on that!

He had to have it, obviously. Sergeant doubled the speed of his inching, sort of, and hunched his way over to the coffee table, various unnoticed Avengers moving their legs out of his way as he did. Once he arrived, however, he realized the flaw in his plan in that the hammer was on the coffee table and he was still on the floor.

Oh, shit, I’m gonna have to stand up.

That was easier said than done. He couldn’t really remember how many legs he was supposed to have and the still wagging tail wasn’t doing a hell of a lot for his balance at the moment. Still, he managed to get most of them under him and levered himself up, standing proud except for his head, which was caught underneath the coffee table.

“Whiiiiiiiinnnnneeeeee?”

“Try backing up, dumbass!” Clint shouted.

Sergeant tried going forward.

“Backwards is in the other direction!”

“Be nice to my dog,” Steve said. Wonderful Steve. Wonderfully stupid Steve.

“Still not a dog,” Sam muttered.

Big hands that he recognized from all the times they scratched his ears and rubbed his belly settled on Sergeant’s hips and gently pulled him backwards until the cone came free from underneath the table.

Freedom! Glorious, wonderful freedom!Steve let go and he surged forward again, this time on top of the coffee table. His target filled his vision, heavy and grey, there for the taking, and then the edge of his cone stopped against the side of the hammer.

Oh, well, fuck me.

Sergeant stared at the hammer, which filled his limited vision and seemed somehow realer than real. Heavier than heavy. Bigger than big. Maybe he wouldn’t just pee on it. He’d hide it. Make it his. Maybe gnaw on it a little. It looked very gnawable.

“Methinks he wants my hammer,” Thor said, sounding amused as Sergeant stretched his head towards it. He couldn’t quite reach thanks to the damn cone. He had to settle to stretching as far as he could and then lapping at the leather loop on the end with his long tongue, trying to get it into his mouth.

“Me thinks he does. This is so going on YouTube.”

“You’re filming this?”

“Fuck yeah! Stoner dog versus immovable object. How long do you think it’ll take before he realizes he can’t move it?”

Sergeant got the strap into his mouth. It tasted all salty and leathery. Lovely stuff. He’d have to have a good chew later. For now, he had to get the hammer back to his bed and hide it before someone realized what he was up to. 

He got a decent grip on the strap and gave it a good, solid yank, expecting it to be heavy. It wasn’t. Thor must have been a total pussy because that thing went flying up into the air in a wide circle that somehow sounded like a whole bunch of people screaming in surprised terror.

Sergeant danced three-legged away from the coffee table, trying to get the hammer under control without hitting himself with it and instead just looped it in more big ass circles that only ended when he smashed the entire side of Steve’s kitchen counter to splinters of wood and marble.

Oops.

Sergeant froze, casted leg jutting out at an angle and tail still going while he stared at the damage and listened. Dead silence.

Oh good, nobody noticed.

A lot more tentative this time, he tugged on the strap, but the hammer looked like it was imbedded in the sink. 

“Sergeant,” Thor intoned as he came up behind him. “You are proven truly worthy and I mourn that I ever cast aspersions against you, but I would take Mjolnir back now, before any further damage is caused.”

Sergeant heaved on the hammer, snapping his head sideways, and the hammer flew out of the rubble and arced back behind him, where it hit… something.

“Odin’s beard,” Thor squeaked and hit the ground.

“Ouch,” Natasha said succinctly. No one else seemed able to say anything.

Gently, Mjolnir swung back around to hang in front of Sergeant’s chest. Happy, he hobbled over to his bed and dropped the hammer into the middle of it. Then he carefully arranged himself around the weapon so he could get a good slobber going on it before he fell asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

Thanks to certain advantages his condition gave him that he didn’t really like to think about, Sergeant’s bullet wound and broken leg were healed within a week. It wasn’t a pleasant week. The itch of accelerated healing was an augmented bitch to deal with, as was fur underneath a cast, but Steve kept him distracted from the worst of it. He pet him, and kept him warm, and talked to him. He endlessly talked to him. Sergeant was pretty sure at this point that Steve had told him his entire life story. 

“I hope I’m not boring you,” Steve had blushed after the damned cast finally came off, running a hand through his hair so that it stuck up like a yellow broom. “I just, I don’t want you to think that you need to keep any more secrets, or that I’m keeping any secrets from you. I want to know more about you. Where you come from, what name you call yourself by, why you stay with me. But I figure I can’t expect you to tell me anything about yourself if you don’t know anything about me, right?”

In answer, Sergeant just put his head in his lap. Steve smiled at that and told him a story about throwing up on a roller coaster at Coney Island when he was a skinny, sickly little kid.

Dumbass.

Apparently, there was a problem with his uber awesome healing powers, however. Steve annoyingly stopped telling his story as the door to the lab opened and Bruce came in, carrying a folder, Tony on his heels with a satchel over his shoulder.

“Come on, admit it, it’s a brilliant idea.”

“It’s an idea,” Bruce admitted. “That’s as far as I’m willing to go. You’ll make it too flashy.”

“What’s wrong with a little flash?”

“What’s the word?” Steve asked as he slipped out from underneath Sergeant’s head and stood up. Sergeant stayed on the lab table. He supposed he didn’t have to, but they’d put some nice comfy blankets on top of it for him and he didn’t feel like moving. He wagged his tail at the newcomers.

Bruce gave him a somewhat uncertain smile and turned to Steve. “I developed the x-rays and the good news is the leg and shoulder are completely healed. Other than a bit of muscle weakness, he’s fine. The bone looks like it was never broken.”

That’s because I’m awesome.

Steve gave Sergeant a relieved pat on the head. “After just a week? That really is good news.”

“Yup,” Tony said, popping the P. “The bad news is, he’s completely healed after a week, while the original x-rays of his shattered leg are up for anyone to find on Google and Fox News is still yelling about how cruel you are for not just putting him down.”

What? Fuck that! Looks like I have a new target for the peeing.

Steve grimaced. “So what do we do? Keep him in a cast until he ‘should’ be healed?”

No. It’s itchy.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna work,” Tony said. “The other stations have been interviewing actual real dog professionals and they all agree that that leg has to come off.”

I can handle itchy. 

“I’m not cutting my dog’s leg off,” Steve said flatly.

Tony gave him a manic grin. “You don’t have to. I’ve got a plan!” He tossed his satchel onto the nearest table and tapped on the lab computer, making a gesture that turned on the holographic display. Sergeant found himself staring up at a larger than life image of himself, standing and looking regal, if translucent. His left leg was made of metal, a cyborg limb coloured in Iron Man’s red and gold.

“That looks stupid!” Steve said.

That looks awesome!

Tony sniffed. “Fine, we can do it up in your colours too.” He made a gesture and the limb turned red, white, and blue instead.

“I don’t think that’s an improvement,” Steve groaned. 

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

While the two of them argued style versus subtlety, Bruce came over to Sergeant. “Um, hello,” he said.

Hello? Sergeant gave a tentative tail wag. Even after everyone found out what he was and decided he wasn’t going to eat them in their sleep or something, except for Steve, most of them didn’t really talk to him directly. It felt a little bit weird to have it happen. He was the dog. People weren’t supposed to talk to the dog in a normal ask-a-question tone.

“Your x-rays look good,” Bruce told him, “but I want to take a closer look at your blood work too, make sure everything is fine, and honestly, I have a lot of professional curiousity about it too.”

Immediately, Captain Overprotective dropped his side of the argument he was having with Tony and turned around. “His blood? You don’t need to take his blood.” 

“It’s not like he’s going to sell it on Ebay,” Tony drolled. “Besides, it’s Sergeant’s decision.” 

Steve immediately looked at Sergeant. “Sergeant, don’t feel like you have to donate any of your blood if you don’t want to.” He glanced up at Bruce. “No offense, but I don’t think he can help you control the Hulk.”

Bruce sighed. “I think trying to mix my blood with a werewolf’s would be the worst idea, but I’m still a scientist. And Tony’s right, it’s his choice. Sergeant, can I have some of your blood?”

“Sergeant, you can say no,” Steve repeated.

“But if you say yes,” Tony interjected, digging in his satchel, “I’ll pay you right now with two bags of ‘Doctor Mutt’s Epic Gooey Chow Treats’,” He held up two silver foil bags, “In rattlesnake and hippo favour!”

Oh my god!

“You’re not bribing my dog!

“I’m not bribing, I’m finding his price!” Tony tossed the bags onto the table and pulled out a long, rubber toy shaped like a hot dog. “Plus I’ll add this squeaky toy!”

SOLD!

Sergeant jammed his paw up into the air so high he nearly fell off the table and caught the squeaky toy when it was tossed to him. 

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK.

Steve gave Tony a look of utter loathing. “I hate you.”

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “No you don’t. Now come on, let’s talk about this cyborg arm some more.”

“I told you, we’re not cutting off his leg.”

“Of course we aren’t. Shit, I’m not an asshole. Okay, yes I am. I’m not a sadist. We’ll just make people think we cut it off and gave him a cyborg leg instead. The tech exists. Cutting edge and expensive, but it’s there. If nothing else, think of it this way. He’ll bring so much publicity to artificial limbs that people will want to donate more money to the science, bring down the costs for veterans and accident victims who really need them. All he has to do is run around in some cosplay.”

Steve hesitated at that, already half sold by that alone. Sergeant didn’t really pay attention to them, or to Bruce taking some of his blood, distracted by his squeaky toy and treats. If nothing else, getting found out was good in that he didn’t have to pretend he wasn’t smart enough to open the treat bags anymore. 

He did look up however, when the two of them reached a consensus of sorts, or at least narrowed the choices down to two. 

One was the Iron Man style glam leg. The other looked like his regular leg, in that it WAS his regular leg, just with ‘metal pieces’ that showed through the fur above and below his joints.

“Which do you prefer?” Steve asked, obviously preferring the latter.

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK.

Steve looked pained. “That’s really kind of annoying, you know.”

I’m gonna have so much fun playing with this when I can’t sleep at three in the morning.

He did look at the two options, though, and thought about it. The first one was awesome, all shiny and colorful, not that he saw colours all that well in this form, but he did wonder how much it weighed and how matted and itchy his fur would get being pushed under it. After the last week in a cast, the thought was mildly torturous. He stretched his neck out and pointed his nose at the second image. 

Steve gave Tony a smug look.

“Fine,” Tony sulked. “We’ll go with the boring one. Losers.” He blinked past them. “Brucie?”

Sergeant and Steve turned around. Bruce had been looking at Sergeant’s blood sample underneath a microscope for the last half hour, but now he was pushed away from the machine, his face pale. Steve crossed immediately over to him.

“What’s wrong? What is it? Is he sick?”

Bruce worked his mouth for a moment before he managed to speak. “No. I don’t think so. I found some elements I didn’t recognize, unique things, but I, I also found.” He had to stop and take another breath. “I… he has the super soldier serum in his blood.”

At that, all three of them turned to stare at Sergeant.

SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short. It's a necessary set up for what comes next. Back to the angst! And sorry it took so long for me to write it. My health took a nosedive in a whole bunch of different ways and I really wasn't in the mood for writing.

Sergeant pulled his head out of the now empty treat bag, licking his chops, and realized everyone was looking at him.

What? If you wanted some, it’s too late now. I ate them already.

Still no one said anything, just staring.

What?? Shit, was I supposed to be paying attention or something?

“So…” Tony said slowly, “he’s a super soldier AND a werewolf.”

What’s a super soldier?

“Apparently.” Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. He smelled stressed. They all smelled stressed.

Maybe I SHOULD have shared the treats?

Steve reached out and scratched behind his ears, which was wonderful until he opened his mouth. “Sergeant, we need to tell us how you got the super soldier serum. It’s important.”

Huh? Still don’t know what you’re talking about, punk. A really, really unwanted memory tickled at the back of his mind and he gave an audible whimper. Oh shit. Not that.

Immediately, Steve had both hands on him, petting and stroking. “It’s okay,” he begged. “Don’t be scared. But we really need to know. Except for the man who gave the serum to me and Bruce’s experiments, no one good’s ever worked on the serum.”

“This is nothing like the serum I have,” Bruce interjected. It’s far more like yours, Steve. Not as pure, but closer than anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe it’s an earlier version?” Tony suggested. “Like whatever it was the Red Skull used? Hydra must have kept some of Erskine’s samples. Wasn’t Erskine supposed to have destroyed all of those before he defected to the west, Steve?”

Steve didn’t answer. He was too busy dealing with a hundred and seventy-five pounds of wolf trying to hide underneath his shirt. 

I don’t want to remember! Don’t make me remember! All those names, all those horrible words he’d pushed so far out of his mind he’d hoped he’d forgotten them. All those memories. Now they were rushing back and even Steve’s hugs weren’t enough to keep him from shivering and whimpering. 

“He’s terrified!” Steve said, giving up on saving his shirt and just hugging Sergeant to him.

“No shit.” Sergeant heard Tony moving around. “Lemme try something.” He moved closer, close enough to shout straight into his ear.

“Hydra!”

Sergeant howled and tried to burrow closer to Steve.

“Tony!” Steve shouted.

“Hey, now we know who injected him. Think they’re looking for him? With all the public appearances, they’ve gotta know we’ve got him.”

“They’ll touch him over my dead body,” Steve snarled.

“Hey, they gotta get through all of us, Capsicle,” Tony soothed. 

“They do,” Bruce agreed, sounding weary beyond words, “but we need to know more about what happened to him, who specifically did this and where, and I don’t think he’s really up for talking.”

Sergeant just huddled in Steve’s tight embrace, tail between his legs, ear pressed to his chest so he could hear his heartbeat, nose filled with his scent. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to speak. All he could do was suffer all over again and remember.


	21. Chapter 21

   
Fragments of memory, flickering unwanted but unstoppable as they recalled events now many decades old…  
   
###  
   
The officers were all dead, their surviving troops about to be overrun if someone didn’t get their head out of their ass. He peered through his scope at the advancing Germans, swearing under his breath even as he took one down with a bullet through the throat.  
   
“Better do something, Sarge,” Dum Dum said beside him. “You’re the highest ranking non-com left.”  
   
“Lucky fucking me.” He ratcheted another bullet into the chamber and raised his voice loudly enough to be heard even over the sound of rifle fire. “PULL BACK! EVERYONE PULL BACK!” Fuck the Generals’ objectives. They could charge his cowardly ass so long as he got his people out in one piece.  
   
He glanced through the scope of his rifle again, little more than a piece of glass on top of the weapon with a crosshair painted on it, just in time to see one of the advancing soldiers disintegrate in a flash of blue light. “The fuck?” In seconds, more of them were flashing into nothingness and the entire German front was vaporized as MORE German tanks rolled into view out of the darkness. They were armed with strange looking guns that had stylized octopi with tentacles wreathed around them on their sides.  All of those guns swivelled to aim at the survivors of the 107th.  
   
The Sarge swallowed and stood up, hands raised. “Boys? Put your hands up. I think we’re done.”  
   
###  
   
His veins were frozen and on fire, his muscles rigid from convulsions and his voice nearly gone because of endless screaming. The labour camp at the weapons factory had been bad, the beatings from when he stepped between his men and the guards worse, and the pneumonia that caused them to finally pick him as one of the local mad scientist’s test subjects worst of all. Or so he’d thought, until they filled his veins with nightmares and focused a machine on him that had to radiate pure hell.  
   
“…32557…” he mumbled out along with his name and rank, just as he had been for the endless eons since he’d been dragged in here and strapped down. He could smell his own b.o., piss, and shit, smell old blood and older rot, hear the endless drip of water and the hiss of molten metal, punctuated by men’s cries and the periodic sound of a gunshot. He didn’t know if he was alive or dead, if anyone in his unit was still surviving down in the factory at all, or if he’d ended up in hell somehow and just hadn’t noticed when the demons got their claws in him.  
   
At least it couldn’t get any worse, he told himself at one point. They could beat him, burn him, freeze him, do a thousand things to him, but while they did, he had the tiny satisfaction that it meant they weren’t doing it to his men and that had to be worth something, right? And at least they weren’t asking him any questions either, not after the last time the mousy little shit in charge asked him how he was feeling following a round of shots. The Sarge might have been half delirious, but he was still proud of how much of the weasel’s white lab coat he managed to cover with his vomit.  
   
###  
   
He really knew he was in hell when the demon with the skinless red face strode in, dressed in an immaculate nazi uniform.  
   
“Doctor Zola!” he cried. “How goes the experimentation? I hear your latest test subject has survived longer than any of the others.”  
   
Zola turned to face him, managing to look both terrified and subsequious at the same time. “Yes, Herr Shmidt. His body has fully accepted the serum, even bastardized from what we were able to save from Dr Erskine’s lab as it is. I believe that once he recovers from his fever, he will be as fast and strong as you are.”  
   
Shultz shifted his eyes towards the Sarge. They were human in appearance, which only made him look even more demonic against the contrast of his skinless face. The Sarge could see the blood moving through his veins across the muscles and felt terror rise in him.  
   
“32557038,” he stammered, but they both ignored him as he went on to his rank and name, repeating them over and over as a mantra against what he was afraid would turn out to be total insanity.  
   
“Excellent work, Doctor. Have him moved immediately to the eastern camp. I am interested in seeing how his serum holds up against Herr Hitler’s latest acquisitions.”  
   
Zola looked shocked. “You’re going to throw him to those monsters? But Herr, he is our only success!” Shmidt shot him a look. “Except for you, of course.”  
   
Shmidt's face curved into a hideous smile. “And you will have many more, my good doctor, now that you have perfected your techniques. We don’t need to rely on some American dog who could turn on us at any time.”  
   
“But we have so few doses of the serum left,” Zola tried.  
   
“And so many good Hydra men to use them on.” Shmidt made a grandiose gesture. “Come now, doctor. We can spare one subject. You have plenty of time to make proper super soldiers. No one amongst the Allies would dare to attack this base and as for this one, consider me curious. Transport him.”  
   
Zola’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, Herr Shmidt.”  
   
###  
   
There was a wide pit behind the new base they took him to, dug behind rows of heavy cages and dog runs. A railing circled around the edge and men leaned over it, shouting and throwing rocks, sticks, and rotten food inside. From inside the pit, an endless, echoing series of growls sounded.  
   
Zola hadn’t come along, preferring to stay in his laboratory while he sent one of his assistants in his stead. That man tried and failed to look like he was in charge as two soldiers dragged the Sarge towards the pit. The Sarge just hung limply in their grip, his head still spinning from getting a rifle butt to the skull every time he moved in the back of the truck. All the potholes the truck rumbled over hadn’t helped either, and were most of the reason for his moving in the first place.  
   
The only reason he was sure he wasn’t dead was because he felt too bad to be anything other than alive. Still, away from the lab and in the clean air, he was feeling better than he had been since before the 107th was captured, something moving under his skin as he felt strength starting to flow back into him.

It didn’t flow fast enough. While the spectators cheered about fresh meat, the soldiers dragged him to the edge of the pit and unceremoniously threw him over the side of the railing.

   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time wise, I think everyone can guess exactly when this happened.


	22. Chapter 22

The Sarge didn’t know how long it took him to come back to himself after his tumbled fall into the depths of the pit, landing as he did on a flat, hard ground a good thirty feet down and knocking the wind out of himself in the process. It might have been an age before his head stopped spinning and he started coming back to himself and the seriousness of his situation. It might have been days or hours.

It was probably seconds, as there was a flurry of motion and long, razor sharp teeth sank deep into the flesh of his upper left arm, lifted him right off the ground again, and started to shake him, shredding the skin and muscle even farther from the motion.

He knew pain; he’d been feeling nothing but pain from the moment he’d been strapped to that lab table, but this was a different type than the slow swamp he’d been buried in before. This was sharp and visceral, intense and bloody, raising adrenaline and terror in equal measures as his entire body screamed to fight for his life.

The Sarge hauled his right arm back and punched the thing biting him in the head as hard as he could. His punch should have been weak and useless, nothing more than an irritant to a monster, but it wasn’t. His knuckles hit the bone forming the thing’s temple and that bone shattered under the force as he carried through to its brain.

Whatever had him shuddered and dropped, its jaws releasing their grip, and the Sarge pulled himself free and scrambled to his feet and backwards until his back hit the wall of the pit. Above, the soldiers had stopped their mad cheering and were staring down at him and what he’d done in astonishment. The Sarge didn’t care what they thought, gasping for breath as he assessed the shithole he’d dropped into instead.

The monster he’d killed was some sort of twisted nightmare mix of a man and a wolf, or a wolf with its limbs and back twisted so that it stood upright on its hind legs and attacked with claws and teeth. The dead one was crumpled in on itself, but there were four more of them in the pit, obviously three more males and one female from where the dangly bits were, all of them crouched and snarling at him from the far side of the pit but apparently a bit cautious about attacking after what he’d done to their packmate.

“Did you see that?” one of the assholes up above shouted in the limited German the Sarge could understand. “Fifty on the American!” They were all shouting then, placing their bets.

“Ten on the wolves,” the Sarge muttered, still panting for breath. “I’ll owe you.” His entire body was trembling, his hamburgered arm refusing to obey him and dripping blood that would probably be better off inside of him all over the ground. One of the mutant wolves, a big fucking grey monstrosity, chuckled and started stalking along the wall towards him. The Sarge edged away from him, though he could hardly keep doing that without ending up in the laps of the other three. 

He looked up at his audience. “Any chance of one of you throwing me a knife or a gun or something?” he asked.

They were all grinning down at him. “No, American dog,” one of them said with a terrible accent. “You die down there.”

“Great. Fucking wonderful.”

The wolf came around the side of the corpse and lunged at him, jaws gaping impossibly wide, claws leading in front of him like scimitars. Years of brawling even before he got combat training in the military had the Sarge diving to the side and rolling around him, banking off the corpse in the middle of the pit and back onto his feet before the wolf could finish his attack and turn around again. He didn’t try to wonder how he managed to do it so quickly - sheer blind terror was a great motivator – and turned to kick sideways as hard as he could, right against the impressive looking, ridged spine he could see curving up along the beast’s back. 

The impressive looking, ridged spine was apparently made of glass, because he heard it shatter as if it was. The wolf made a startled sort of yipping sound and dropped. 

The Sarge moved back to the wall and stared at the three survivors, who seemed rather confused over what was going on. He was kind of on the same page about that. He held his left arm with his right hand, but the bleeding was almost stopped now and he was getting feeling back in it. A tingling sort of feeling that was spreading throughout all the rest of him as well, slowly replacing his pain with an itchy, unsettled feeling and his fear with an unnatural rage. 

His eyes narrowed at the three wolves glaring at him; the smallest of the three, the weakest. He hated them. He hated him like he hated the Hydra soldiers laughing around the mouth of the pit, like he hated Zola and Shmidt, like how he hated Dum-Dum and the 107th and his parents, and every person he’d ever walked past in his entire fucking life. He wanted to kill them all.

“Come on, you little fucks,” he growled at the three. “What are you waiting for?” They growled back at him at his tone, hunching down, and he laughed at them. “Come on!” They lunged at him as a group and he charged right back at them at the same time, body already twisting - thanks to the poison bitten into his veins - into a monster just like them.

###

Schmidt stopped by the cage they’d locked him in some days later in a rage. 

“Five of our best,” he snapped as he stripped off his gloves and slapped them into his palm. “Five of the finest members of our greatest Death Squad. The very ultimate that Hydra has to offer. Volunteers to be bitten by that ancient, almost dead wretch the Fuhrer’s fools managed to find and driven psychotic by the change. Still useful though, oh yes, very useful, until YOU RIPPED THEM APART!”

He wasn’t afraid of the man anymore, not of his skinless skull or the stink of evil that hung around him. He lazed at the back of his cage and gave a low, dangerous growl.

Schmidt returned him a sneer of disgust. “Now I have none of my finest and thanks to a star spangled chorous girl, you are my only remaining super soldier, dog.”

Speaking wasn’t an option in this form, so his voice was starting to sound only inside his head, such that it was. Caring wasn’t an option, so he forgot about compassion. There was only the rage. 

I’d laugh at you if I gave a fuck, asshole.

Schmidt moved interestingly closer. “It turns out you are going to be MY dog after all, American. You are going to birth both super soldiers and werewolves for Hydra or-”

He lunged for the front of the cage and only the fact that Schmidt was also a super soldier got him out of range again before he lost his head and probably most of his torso. 

“You will be ours,” he raged as he stormed off. “It’s inevitable!”

Whatever.

###

The problem with hatred was that, after long enough, it got to be boring. 

He lay in his cage, which he hadn’t left since they’d forced him into it at the end of chains and cattle prods after his killed their pack. Any new volunteers they brought to him and put into an adjoining cage before lifting the hatch between. 

Despite Schmidt’s hopes, he’d ripped every one of them into pieces. After a time, there were no volunteers. Just prisoners from the local death camps brought to tempt him, and they fared no better than the volunteers did. He glutted himself on blood and death.

Otherwise, he was bored, lying in the paltry shade of his cage on a beautiful spring day and watching the clouds scud across the sky. The soldiers were out of both sight and smell range and he could hear birds sing. It was peaceful, more peaceful than he could remember it ever being.

A butterfly fluttered around outside the cage and a gust of breeze flipped it inside, where it danced in the air over the monster’s face. He lazily snapped his jaws at it, but missed and it landed on the tip of his nose, wings fanning in slow arcs.

He held still, staring cross-eyed at it in – what was this? – amazement. Pretty, delicate, innocent, it perched there, inches from death and unafraid of him. 

Something in the gentleness of that undid the anger of the monster inside him. It didn’t vanish completely. The anger of the werewolf couldn’t be undone completely, but it pulled back and the first real thought that was his came to him in what had to be months at the very least.

What have I done?

Absolute horror filled him. He’d been the worst kind of monster, a killer deadlier than Schmidt, than Zola, than any of the Nazis or these Hydra thugs. He wasn’t human. He didn’t deserve to be human anymore. He’d been too weak to hang onto his humanity.

Oh my god! What do I do?

He had to get out of here, before they did manage to get another were or a thousand out of him, before they took his blood and figured out how to make more super soldiers and used them to win the war. It couldn’t matter what happened to him, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive himself, but he had to get out of here. Somehow.

How?

The butterfly lifted off of his nose, fluttering its stilted way back out between the bars of the cage and away into the fields around the werewolf pit. He couldn’t just follow it though. The bars were too close together for him to get through, either as a werewolf or as a man. He’d have to be something smaller and slimmer to do that.

Could he do that? He didn’t actually know what he could do. Everything had been instinct so far; he hadn’t even changed back to his original form. Now he didn’t want to, even if it would have helped. He’d lost his right to be a human being anymore.

Instead, he found himself going the other way. Not to the man. Not to the were. To the wolf. To the pure animal in him that must lie beyond the monster and had to be the only innocent part of him left. 

It wasn’t easy; it hurt like hell to shift, but pain was what he deserved now and no one deserved what would come if he didn’t escape. He went to all fours, fingers shrinking, bones realigning, and didn’t necessarily become smaller but did become slimmer, with a narrower skull and smaller, more streamlined ribcage. It was as a black wolf with blue eyes that he squeezed his way between the bars and down to the ground in front of it, his nose and ears assailed by senses and sounds stronger than anything that the were could detect, his vision muted almost to grey. 

Awkward on his feet at first, the soldier that the Red Skull had called an American Dog ran away from the Hydra compound and vanished into the woods beyond the field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter of flashback coming.


	23. Chapter 23

Without any sure direction to go, he ended up back at the base the 107th was stationed out of.  
   
He hadn’t intended to, but somehow he’d wound up there without even thinking about it. The wolf was good for that; not thinking that is. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think. It was more that there were so many distractions around that he usually didn’t. Instead he spent his days sniffing everything, peeing on half the things he sniffed, and chasing anything that resembled a squirrel.  
   
There was an awful lot of peace to be found in it.  
   
Coming out of the woods on the edge of the camp was a big shock to that peace. He’d been smelling it for a while, of course, but he was a moron when it came to knowing what smell meant what and he hadn’t had a clue where he really was. Now, however, he recognized the tents and the few more permanent buildings, such as the chow hall and the senior operations building. There were jeeps parked everywhere and even a tank or two.  
   
There were people everywhere too, and he whined as he recognized some of them. Soldiers from the 107th that he’d known and worked with in the field, all of them doing the usual shit work they were saddled with between engagements, smoking and bitching and laughing while they did.  
   
It felt like a lifetime since he’d seen them, had been a lifetime in a way, and he stood unnoticed behind a bush on the edge of the camp and stared at them with a odd sort of loss pounding in his heart.  
   
A moment later, his heart nearly pounded out of his heart when he saw Dum-Dum stroll around the side of a tent, accompanied by the men who’d shared a cage with him and the Sarge before the Sarge was dragged off to the hell he was still in.  
   
They lived? Holy shit, they actually got back?! Schmidt hadn’t been lying about them being rescued by a chorus girl?  
   
If I ever see that dame, I’m gonna give her a great big kiss on the mouth!  
   
Tail wagging and wriggling in place, he whined and shimmied at the sight of them. He could go back. Dum-Dum, everyone, they were alive. He could go back!  
   
No he couldn’t. He was a monster now. He didn’t deserve to be a human being. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to even be a human being.  
   
“Hey, boy, look at you. What are you doing out here?”  
   
Huh?  
   
He’d been lost in his own thoughts and looked up to see Dum-Dum crouching a few feet away, hand extended, having spotted him behind his bush. The other men were a few feet behind him. His tail immediately went between his legs.  
   
“Don’t be scared,” Dum-Dum urged. “Come on, boy.”  
   
“He’s huge,” Morita whispered.  
   
“No shit,” Jones agreed. “Dum-Dum better be careful he doesn’t lose a hand.”  
   
Gingerly, he extended his head and sniffed the end of Dum-Dum’s fingers, who looked utterly delighted. He smelled of tobacco, gun oil, and the crappy soap they gave them for the showers, along with dirt and sweat.  
   
“That’s a boy,” Dum-Dum cheered and edged forward enough to scratch behind the Sarge’s ears.  
   
Oh! Oh my!  
   
“Ha! Il t’adore!” Dernier laughed.  
   
“Perhaps we should keep him,” Falsworth suggested. “Then the chaps would really have no choice but to call us the Howling Commandos.”

“Hey, Cap!” Jones shouted back the way they’d come. “Hurry up and see our new mascot!”

Dum-Dum kept scratching and he kept leaning into it. It was… wonderful. His tail started a slow wag on its own.

“His eyes are the same colour your Sergeant’s were in Azzano,” Jones said.

“Yeah,” Dum-Dum agreed and he sounded sad. “Maybe we should name him after him.”

He pulled back, dread and guilt filling him. He couldn’t stay here. He didn’t deserve to stay here. Named for himself? Worried every second he’d turn back into that monster? Someone new came up behind the group just as he turned and bolted back into the trees, ignoring their calls to come back as he ran, and kept running for an endlessly long time.

###

The memory dissolved into wisps of red as Wanda pulled back her powers that had allowed her to see and share his memories. Sergeant found he wasn’t in World War II anymore after all but actually lying on his dog bed where he’d been when he’d agreed to let her view his past, given he couldn’t really just talk about it. 

He hadn’t realized the memories would feel so fresh though, and he whimpered as she wiped tears away from her eyes, trying to compose herself. 

Steve dug his fingers into his fur, Steve who’d been there watching alongside Wanda and seen everything he’d done and become. Steve who had tears in his own eyes as he rubbed his fur and petted him and lifted his head so that Sergeant was forced to look up at him.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. None of it was your fault. I promise.”

You must not have been going through the same memories I was, punk. I’m a monster.

“You’re good,” Steve said defiantly. “The best.” He hugged him and pulled back to look him in the face as he dragged up a name from the memories that Sergeant hadn’t thought of in decades. 

“I’m glad I finally got to meet you, Bucky.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... back to the fluff.
> 
> In the past four days, I've gotten kisses from two separate doggies! I am so happy!

After the whole history reveal, and once everyone got over the shock of him being ninety years old - as if that was such a big deal - it was decided that he was safe. Schmidt was dead since 1945. Arnim Zola died back in 1972. Hydra was so disassembled after the war that it was only heard of anymore in usually false intelligence reports and conspiracy series. Nobody saw him get out of that cage, so nobody knew he could turn into a full wolf, so therefore, nobody who wasn’t around anymore anyway was out anywhere looking for him after almost a century. Besides, even if they were - thanks for that insight, Tony - nobody except for the Avengers knew he was a werewolf, and no one was going to unless they wanted to deal with Steve’s disappointed Dad face.

Sergeant - or Bucky as Steve started calling him in private for some fucked up reason - was good with that, and it mostly stopped the nightmares, but he felt kinda clingy somehow in the weeks afterward. The oh-you’re-on-the-couch,-here-let-me-get-up-on-your-lap-and-sit-in-the-way-of-whatever-it-was-you-thought-you’d-actually-be-doing-there sort of clingy. Or It’s-bedtime?-Don’t-mind-me,-I’m-just-gonna-sleep-on-your-head. So? It made him feel better.

He didn’t like being left alone anymore either. The one time Steve tried, he sat at the door and howled. When he figured out that wasn’t going to work, he went and dug Steve’s spare comm unit out of his desk, tabbed it on, and howled into that instead.

For an hour.

So here he was, at an official Avengers press conference. Being losers, the Avengers all got to stand at semi-attention while Steve stood at the podium reading off all sorts of boring shit about acquisitions and materials requirements for the team. Or something. Sergeant wasn’t really listening. Since he wasn’t a loser, he was sprawled on his back with all four paws in the air between Hawkeye and Thor, snoring. 

Stark, who’d locked the joints of his Iron Man suit, was doing much the same thing, only while standing up.

Somewhere in the middle of hour six billion and eleventy-nine of the final question period, Hawkeye nudged Sergeant with the tip of his boot. Grudgingly, Sergeant opened one eye and looked up at him.

“Save us,” Hawkeye mouthed at him.

He thought about just going back to sleep, but Hawkeye was his number one source for popcorn and peanut butter, and if Sergeant hadn’t ratted him out when Steve demanded to know who gave him so much his mouth ended up glued closed, he wasn’t going to fail him now. So he sighed, rolled over onto his paws and stood up, giving himself a good shake as he did so as to settle his fur just right. He had to look good for the cameras, after all. 

Bored, a few of the reporters looked at him, so he wagged his tail at them and dropped his jaw in a tongue-lolling, doggy grin before he turned and padded around behind the Avengers towards Steve, where the punk wouldn’t see him coming. Presentation was everything after all.

“In answer to your question, ma’am,” Steve said, “I think it’s very important that the Avengers don’t answer to any specific political body. We’re here to protect people, not fulfill any sort of political agen-DA!”

The last sentence was said in a beautifully high pitched screech as Sergeant came up behind him and jammed his very cold nose firmly somewhere very personal and private in his nether regions. Steve jumped too, legs moving away from the unexpected attack, and Sergeant darted into the sudden space, almost tripping the stumbling man as the reporters exclaimed in surprise and the cameras recorded everything for all sorts of future memes.

“What the f-” Steve managed to stop himself just as Sergeant reared up on his hind legs, his tail still sticking out from between the man’s legs and whapping him on the back of the thighs as he planted his front paws on the podium and boofed at the audience, who appreciatively started to laugh as the microphone amplified his hello bark. 

Ooh, shiny!

He chomped on the ball of the microphone a few times, which turned out to not really be chewable and tasted metallic as well, on top of making a horrible feedback sound. So he licked it a few times instead, which tasted ozoney instead and then threw his head back and licked Steve instead, who was a much better tongue target.

Ha, score! Got him right across the mouth!

Even the Avengers were laughing, except for the sleeping Tony of course. And Vision, who’d apparently been built without a sense of humour. Giving in to the inevitable - and probably as sick of being there as the rest of them - Steve wrapped an arm around Sergeant’s chest and looked at the swarm of reporters.

“All right,” he said, “It looks like the final question belongs to Sergeant Thunderpaws. Who’d like to ask it?”

The audience were still laughing, but also looking at each other as if debating who’d be stupid enough to pose a question to a dog.

I dare ya! Sergeant patted his paws against the podium and gave Steve another happy lick. This is fun!

Finally, an older black man stood, looking regal and composed, though there was more than a hint of amusement in his eyes. The other reporters eyed him like vultures, just waiting for him to go down.

“Ben Urich for the “Daily Bugle,” he introduced himself and Sergeant felt Steve cringe just the tiniest bit behind him. Apparently not a rag he approved of, “and I have a question for the Sergeant.”

He looked straight at Sergeant with that serious look, which was awesome. “Tell us Sergeant,” he said, and dropped his hands to his knees, bending forward. “WHO’S A GOOD BOY? WHO’S A GOOD DOG? HUH? HUH? ARE YOU A GOOD BOY? ARE YOU? ARE YOU?”

OH HELL YES I AM! 

Sergeant went into wriggling madness, paddling his paws against the top of the podium and tossing his head from one side to the other as the audience roared with laughter, yipping and barking in absolute glee. He wriggled hysterically and Steve finally had to pick him up, holding him under the belly as Sergeant tried to squirm free.

Lemme go! I gotta lick everybody!

“Thank you for the questions,” Steve managed to say into the mike and hauled Sergeant off the stage, the rest of the Avengers following, most of them still laughing themselves. 

Only Thor paused, looking at Iron Man - who hadn’t moved - in amusement, before he picked the entire stiffened form up, tucked him under his arm, and followed everyone else off stage with him.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want everyone to know that I really, REALLY appreciate all the comments that people take the time to write to me. I'm sorry I'm so bad at always replying to them. I get them and I squeal over them, and then I usually don't know what to say other than thank you, then I put it off because all I have to say is thank you, then I get emberassed because I put it off... and you get the idea. 
> 
> I really do love them all. Writing's been hard lately and they're all that keeps me coming back to it most of the time at all.
> 
> But here, have some Steve and Sergeant in Brooklyn being fluffy.

Chapter Twenty-Five

After the press conference, Steve stayed in New York for a few days instead of heading straight back upstate, which of course meant Sergeant got to stay with him, and since he stayed at Stark Tower, that meant that Sergeant finally did get to shed in the lap of luxury.

Or he would have if Steve didn’t decide to take him on a ninety-year old trip down memory lane, after Wanda’s own little memory tripping established that they’d just about come from the same neighbourhood in the first place.

“I can’t believe how many times we’ve almost run into each other in our lives,” Steve said as he walked Sergeant down one of the new gentrified streets of Brooklyn. 

Sergeant just let his tongue loll out of his mouth and trotted at his side. What’s with this almost? Betcha I beat your punk ass up in one of these alleyways, back in the day.

Steve paused at the entrance to an alley between two brick buildings that looked - and smelled - as if it hadn’t changed all that much in seven decades. 

“I got beat up in that alley,” Steve observed.

Told you.

Steve was in disguise for this little sojourn. Sort of. Actually, it was a shit disguise. He was six foot two of blond beefcake trying to hide it by wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, though the two sizes too small t-shirt drawing everyone’s attention to his manly tits instead of his face did a better job. 

He was also walking a hundred sixty five pounds of black wolf dog known across the nation for not biting when he got body tackled by small children, even small children who surprised him.

Even small children who yanked as hard as they could on his tail.

“YIPE! YIPE!” OW OW OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!

Steve spun at his yelp, reaching for the shield he of course wasn’t wearing, while Sergeant spun around to see a blissfully happy looking just-past-toddler-age-apparently-growing-into-an-asshole child gripping his tail and yanking on it as if it were the trigger mechanism to get Sergeant to barf up candy for him. 

“Hey, whoa, better let go of that,” Steve said, reassessing the danger level from lethal to probably something around oh-shit-better-not-make-it-cry. He was always a little tense around small children. At least he got Sergeant’s tail free, who whipped it around to give it a few licks. Tails were sensitive and that had hurt.

“I wanna pet him!” the brat wailed.

No. Tail pullers don’t get petting rights.

He shuffled over behind Steve to make his point, which Steve was fortunately smart enough to get. “Sorry, I think you hurt him a bit. Maybe later.”

“But I wanta pet him!” 

Sheah, not likely. Sergeant looked around for his mother, expecting to see some woman charging down on them in defence of her special snowflake. Instead he saw something much worse. Mister Grabby Tail was apparently part of a school group of tiny monsters just like him, all of whom had spotted them both and were now mustering up into full fanboy charge. In about two seconds, they were going to be overwhelmed.

Fuck this noise!

As all good soldiers know, in the face of overwhelming forces, head for the high ground. So Sergeant did. It was a good thing that Steve had such broad shoulders. He was probably unhappy to have a sudden face full of belly fur and nearly two hundred pounds of dog sitting on his head, but it got Sergeant out of the reach of the children, so he was good.

###

They checked out Steve’s childhood home - long gone, but there was a plaque - and the school he’d attended - rebuilt and carrying his name - but they didn’t go to where Sergeant lived when he’d been a human boy called Bucky Barnes. Steve wanted to and kept hinting at it, but Sergeant didn’t really remember where he’d lived anymore after so long and doubted there was anything left to see anyway. It didn’t matter. He’d left all that human history behind.

They ended up at a park instead, so Sergeant could have a good pee without people complaining about him flooding their sidewalk. He was just sniffing around for the perfect place to mark his territory and freak the local dog population out for the next year or so, when he smelled Steve’s scent change to embarrassed surprise.

Sergeant looked up. He’d been sniffing the base of a statue without really looking at it. Seeing the blush on Steve’s face, he turned around now and did.

He was at the base of a thirteen foot or so statue consisting of a bronze dais with a man on it. It was Steve, standing in all his regal manliness, foot on a rock, shield held upright, so full of righteous intent that he looked like an utter git. Under his feet, on the dais, someone had printed the words “I’m just a kid from Brooklyn”, followed by “Hometown Pride”, “est. 1941”, “celebrating 75 years”, and finally, at the very bottom, in really big letters, “CAPTAIN AMERICA”.

Sergeant stared at it all for a minute, ears perked up and tongue sticking just outside of his muzzle. Finally he turned and looked back at Steve, who had his arms wrapped around his chest and one hand up to his blushing face as if wishing that he could just sink into the ground and disappear.

Sergeant’s jaw dropped loose and his tongue lolled in a huge grin. Eyes locked on Steve’s, he turned sideways and both slowly and dramatically cocked a leg. Steve covered his face with his hand.

That, of course, was the picture that the paparazzi in the bushes got. It even made the cover of PEOPLE.

And, of course, DOG NEWS.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, before someone asks, Sergeant did actually pee on Steve's statue. Gotta keep the man humble after all. :)


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how I managed this, but I posted the last chapter twice and the site isn't letting me delete it. I'll try and get something up soon, but I just had a breast reduction yesterday and my muse is still going owowowowowowowowow....

coming soon...


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't story related, but as some of you may have noticed, my name has changed from Hydraarill to Dragontrill. I'm trying to change it wherever I have it, and below is a copy/paste of my tumblr post as to why.
> 
> Sit down, children, and I’ll tell you a tale. About twenty-two years ago, my then boyfriend, now husband, instead of giving my flowers for valentine’s day, gave me an email address and a login to a BBS (bulletin board system). This was back in the old days, when chats were text based only. 
> 
> So in I went, wee innocent me, to meet all these strangers from who knows where and see what was what. And of course, being so innocent, I used my real name.
> 
> Yep, you guessed it. Within thirty seconds (I kid you not), I’d been private messaged by some dude wanting cyber sex. 
> 
> Yeah….. not the best experience. To their credit, the nice people I’d been talking to were all horrified when they found out, but I decided to maybe use a less female sounding name in future.
> 
> So Hydra was born. Hydra to me being the original multi-headed grecian dragon that I always had a certain fondness for. I love Greek myths. At the time, I didn’t read Marvel comics and had no knowledge of the fictional Hydra nazi organization in the Captain America books. So Hydra continued as my name, grew to Hydraa, then to Hydraaril, then finally to Hydraarill, entirely because of my needing to change it whenever I tried to log into a new system and found the name was already being used by someone else. Ril is a character in a book I wrote btw, so that’s where that came from.
> 
> I do read Marvel comics now and have watched all the MCU movies, so I definitely do know who Hydra is in that context, but I never stopped looking at my name and thinking ‘greek dragon’. 
> 
> Tonight I was contacted by a very nice person asking where the name came from. They’re Jewish and they definitely don’t look at it and think fun mythology. 
> 
> So Hydraarill is gone and Dragontrill is born. Perception is important. What I think when I see the word means absolutely nothing in the face of the real world issues Jewish people have been facing and are still facing even now. I’ll be damned before I allow even one person to be uncomfortable when I can prevent it. It’s just a name. I’m not that attached.
> 
> Now I just have to figure out how to change it in all the other places I’ve used it.

The brooklyn bridge was beautiful at night, all sparkly lights and cars honking at each other while their drivers shouted insults. 

Steve and Sergeant sat far enough away that they couldn’t hear the honking all that well and Sergeant could barely smell the piss. They were sitting on the edge of a roof overlooking both the harbour and the bridge, Steve with one arm looped around Sergeant’s body and Sergeant leaning up against him and licking at his face. 

Steve was making fun and interesting faces at that. “Do you have to wash my entire face?” he managed to get out between lickings.

Shouldn’ta had ribs for dinner, punk. I loves me some barbecue sauce.

Steve turned his face away, spat out some fur and hugged Sergeant to him, scrubbing his ears with his free hand while he gave him a resounding kiss on the top of his head. 

“Cut it out or I’ll tickle you,” he warned.

Not ticklish. Still, Sergeant let himself slide down and rolled over so that Steve could provide some proper rubbing of his belly. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Steve said, a couple of bliss-filled minutes later. 

Don’t hurt yourself.

Steve looked down at him, his expression a bit wistful. “Since I found out how close we came to meeting all those times but never did, I really wish we had. I think it would have been great growing up with you and maybe I could have stopped all those horrible things from happening to you.”

Sergeant couldn’t reach his face so he lapped his tongue over his hand where it rested on his furry chest instead. 

Aw, don’t go worrying yourself over stuff you can’t change. It’s all done with and everything’s good now.

Steve probably guessed what he was thinking as he let a smile cross his face. “You’re a good man, Bucky.”

Dog, Steve. Dog.

Steve gently took his muzzle in his hand and shook it very softly. “You’re telling me you’re a dog, aren’t you?”

Sergeant pulled free, rolled over, and sat up, looking at him as he huffed out a breath and nodded for emphasis. Well, yeah, I am. 

Steve looked right back at him, sitting mostly in shadow with the greens and reds of neon lighting shading up his far side. “You’re happy being a dog?”

Sergeant nodded again. Of course he was happy. He had free eats, never had to do laundry, got lots of pets, and didn’t have any real responsibilities. What wasn’t there to be happy about?

“And you never miss being human?”

Sergeant tilted his head to one side and whined. What was Steve getting at? He shifted his front paws, not sure how to communicate his confusion.

Steve seemed to get it anyway. He looked not at Sergeant but down at his clasped hands. “I’ve been thinking. You and me, we got the same serum, or close enough. You got the werewolf bite too, but I mean, you’re almost a hundred years old and you haven’t aged. There aren’t any werewolf legends talking about immortal werewolves, so I think that’s got to be the serum. So how long are you going to live? How long am I going to live? Hundreds of years? More? More than everyone else around us, that’s for sure.”

Sergeant leaned close with a whine and nosed his cheek. I’ll always be with you, Stevie.

Steve threw an arm around him. “I’ve got you, and oh boy, am I glad I’ve got you, and I can talk to you, but there are so many times I just wish you could talk back.”

Sergeant looked down. Oh.

Steve’s hug tightened, as if to prevent him from running away. “I know what happened to you was horrible, I understand that. But do you think that maybe, you could try and be human again, just to try it out, see if maybe you might find you like it?”

Sergeant hesitated, unsure.

“I’m talking baby steps,” Steve assured him. “Tuesday evenings for humanity, give it a whirl, I’ll make dinner, and if you really don’t like it, then yeah, you can be a dog. I just… don’t want to think of you denying yourself something that could turn out to be good. And it’ll just be the two of us, I promise.”

Sergeant shifted on his paws, still not sure about this. Could he be human again? Did he deserve to be? Did he want to be? He didn’t know, but he thought he could maybe try, for Steve’s sake.

Finally, he gave a slow nod of agreement and Steve gave him the best hug ever.

###

They took the long route home, pretty much wandering aimlessly and ending up in some snooty neighbourhood with expensive brownstones and one house with weird architecture and a weirder smell.

It was late, well past midnight, but the lights were on in the front window and Sergeant saw a shape kind of swoop up in front of it, something that looked like a personless coat that was waving at him in rabid excitement.

Okay, this might be a good time to be able to talk to Steve.

The whatever it was disappeared, swooping out of sight, but a moment later, the front door of the house banged open and an instant later, Sergeant had been engulfed in an attack caused by living laundry that was really fantastic at giving belly rubs.

“What the hell?” Steve shouted from somewhere outside this sudden nirvana bubble.

A bearded man ran out of the house and Steve rounded on him, indignant and hopelessly confused. 

“Your curtain is attacking my dog!” he shrieked.

“It’s a cloak,” the man corrected. The two of them looked down at Sergeant, sprawled on his back and getting rubbed absolutely everywhere at once. His eyes were rolling back in his head.

“How about,” the man said at last, “you don’t ask me about my cloak and I don’t ask you why you’re walking a werewolf?”

A pause. “Deal,” Steve agreed.

Gwwwwaaaabllllllaaaaaahhhh! was all Sergeant managed to add.


	28. Chapter 28

For the next couple of Tuesdays, Steve reminded Sergeant of his suggestion to become human for the evening, but he didn't push, and Sergeant didn't treat the day as any different from any other. The third week, he cajoled him and eventually Sergeant decided to hide under the bed.

The fourth week, he played dirty.

Steak steak steak steak steak, Sergeant chanted as he turned in excited circles in the kitchen, watching and getting underfoot while Steve platted two absolutely huge ribeye steaks along with potatoes and vegetables and carried them over to the table, where ice cold beers already waited. He set the plates down and popped the caps off the bottles.

Dinnertime! Sergeant cheered, hopping onto his hind legs, front paws planted on the table as he reached for the awesome noms.

"No," Steve said and pushed him back down to the floor.

What the hell do you mean, no?!

Steve herded him back into the kitchen, hands on his hips. "Dogs," he intoned, "eat kibble. Only people eat steak." With that, he took the bag of dried dog food he'd long since stopped feeding him and filled his steel bowl with it.

Sergeant stared down at the contents of the bowl and then up at Steve. You're an asshole.

Steve shrugged. "You know what to do if you want to have steak." He headed back to the table, where he sat down and started to cut leisurely into his meat. Definitely an asshole.

Sergeant plopped his butt on the floor, seething. Fine. He didn't need some gloriously juicy steak. He was just fine with kibble. He'd eaten worse. This was just fine. Steve wasn't going to win playing this game. He glanced over to see his water bowl was bone dry and barked in indignation. Hey, fuckhead! Where's my water?!

Steve chewed and swallowed a bite of steak like it was the most delicious thing in the world. "I left the toilet seat lid up for you," he said.

Five minutes later, Sergeant dragged himself painfully into his chair, almost pulling it over onto himself in the process, and just sat there for a minute hunched over and panting. Steve wisely didn't say anything. If he had, Sergeant would have gone to the effort of dragging himself over there just so he could bite him on the ankle. No, that might have turned him into a werewolf too; he would have dragged himself over there so he could pee all over his sneakers.

The steak smelled awesome, even if he couldn't smell as good in human form. Still, Sergeant delayed digging in long enough to raise his hands to the table. His fingers were still. Seventy years of not using them had made them stiff, unresponsive. He could point them well enough to one-finger type on a keyboard, but for finer motor control, they were nearly as useless as a dog's paw. Still, using the side of his other hand, he pushed down all the fingers of one hand except for the middle one, which he extended in Steve's direction.

Steve made a gratifying choking sound.

Steve had set utensils out for him, the useless little shit. Sergeant looked at them, rolled his eyes, and slapped his hands down on one end of the rib eye while he dug his teeth into the other end and gave a big yank. A huge chunk came free and he proceeded to bolt it down whole while Steve watched, wide-eyed.

Apparently, humans couldn't bolt food nearly as effectively as dogs did.

When Sergeant started to choke, Steve shouted "Bucky!" and nearly launched the table, along with all of the lovely food on it, across the room as he ran to him. He slapped him on the back hard enough to shift his spine over to sit in front of his lungs, but it didn't do anything to get the steak out of his throat.

"Oh shit oh shit oh shit," Steve chanted as he got behind him and grabbed him under the ribcage with both hands. So far, this whole turn human for one evening deal was sucking the cosmic wang. Sergeant couldn't breathe and his vision was getting all fuzzy around the edges.

Then Steve yanked both clasped fists upwards, punching him in the sternum, and the steak went flying across the room to splat against the wall, where it remained stuck. Sergeant collapsed in his arms and heaved in a huge, gasping breath of air with a loud whine.

"I'm sorry!" Steve wailed, hugging him and holding him up at the same time. If he hadn't, Sergeant would have landed on his naked ass at his feet. "Are you okay?"

You goddammned asshole, Sergeant wanted to say. Are you trying to kill me, you punk? He coughed, cleared his throat, and all he managed to whimper was "Food!"

Steve laughed. "You're alright. Come on, let me clean you up and I'll make another dinner."

Why? There's a perfectly good one soaking into the carpet. Still, Sergeant let Steve manhandle him into the bathroom and into that magnificent shower he'd admired before. Steve stood him upright in it - Sergeant was very proud of himself when he swayed but didn't fall over - and stepped back.

"I'm sure you'll feel better after you shower."

Sergeant looked at the complex arrangement of dials and knobs and levers, down at his paw hands, up at Steve, and then down at his hands again and went through the slow process of forming the finger again.

"Okay, okay, I get the point," Steve said before he could finish and stripped down to his boxers so he could get in the shower with him.

The shower was just as wonderful as it had looked from a dog's point of view. The water was hot and it came from everywhere, and as Sergeant was so quickly reminded, while wet dog sucked, wet human was AWESOME.

"Stop squirming!" Steve laughed, trying to get shampoo in his hair at the same time that Sergeant was trying to get to all the sources of water at once and giggling all the while.

"Water!" he managed. The damn words were still like spitting out gravel. "Water!"

"Yeah, I know, it's water. Now keep your eyes shut and hold still!" Steve somehow managed to grab him without dropping the handful of shampoo he held, spun him so his back was against Steve's chest, and hold him while he rubbed the shampoo vigorously through his hair. It was as good as a thorough belly rub. He twisted his head around and tried to lick Steve's face, but his tongue was too short and he just ended up with a mouthful of suds. Steve laughed at him while he stood there sputtering.

"Serves you right," he teased and put him under the spray to rinse.

Finally, after the application of something that was called conditioner but that smelled like tree bark, Steve rinsed him down and turned off the water. He opened the door and Sergeant shrieked and yanked it shut again. Steve blinked at him. Sergeant glared back at him in betrayal.

"Cold," he said.

Steve smiled. "Yeah, I know, but it'll just be for a second while I get the towels." He tried to open the door again.

Sergeant slammed it shut. "No! Cold!"

A second later and they were wrestling for control of the door. Steve had the advantage of knowing how to use his hands, but Sergeant was as slippery as a greased pig and had no body shyness at all. Apparently there were some body parts worth extra points in the flinch and squeal competition where Captain America was concerned.

Finally, the whole argument was ended when they both fell against the shower door and it popped open, dropping them both in the much colder bathroom space beyond.

"Cold cold cold cold cold," Sergeant chanted, hunkering towards the door with every intention of hiding inside the covers on Steve's side of the bed until he warm, but Steve tackled him with an extra fluffy heated towel before he got very far.

It was an acceptable defeat.

In the bedroom, Steve dressed him in a pair of his sweatpants that were a bit tight at the hip because Steve had such a skinny ass, but needed to be rolled up at the feet, which he covered in bright yellow fuzzy socks. He put a super soft sweat shirt on him as well that read ARMY on it in faded letters, and finally ran a comb through his hair, combing it back from his face. Sergeant sat blinking at the world as it reemerged from behind the wall of hair.

Steve stepped in front of him, grinning. "There, Bucky, now you look like a presentable human. Here, take a look at yourself while I change into something dry." He handed him a mirror and turned to the closet.

The mirror cupped between his hands, Sergeant looked down at himself, at Bucky, and blinked at the familiar pale blue eyes. The hair was longer, sure, but pulled back he could imagine it was as short as it had been when he'd been a kid back in Brooklyn before the war, wearing it slicked back with pomade for a date. Almost.

He blew a raspberry at himself and set the mirror down as Steve reappeared wearing clothes not all that different from his.

"Ready to eat?" he asked.

Sergeant cleared his throat. "Always ready," he said, his voice a little clearer.

Steve's grin widened and he offered a hand to help Sergeant to his feet. He accepted and was pleased when he only overbalanced a little bit when he got up. Steve squeezed his hand but didn't let go as he led him out of the bedroom. Sergeant immediately turned towards the dining room, but Steve tugged him along behind him towards the door leading into the main complex.

"Come on, we can do much better than food that's been on the floor."

"But... but I like floor food."

Steve howled with laughter, but he was unforgiving and Sergeant found himself being tugged down the passageway outside, leaving all that wonderful food behind.

In the main hallways, there was no carpet, but the socks he was wearing were thick and warm and Sergeant walked along, half focusing on not tripping over his own feet, half on the colours around him that he hadn't been able to see in his other form before.

He led him into the communal area they used to watch movies. There were a few Avengers there, Clint, Natasha, and Tony watching something on TV. Sergeant started towards them, trying to think of what humans did instead of wagging their tails, but Steve headed towards the kitchen area and Sergeant had to go with him or end up being dragged.

Actually, the floors were slick and being dragged sounded like fun, so he let Steve tow him the last little way.

"Is that who I think it is?" Tony asked.

"I think it is," Natasha agreed.

"Shit, he's actually hot," Clint said. "Who'd have guessed?"

In the kitchen area, which was open to the common space, Steve plopped Sergeant on a stool and went to dig through the refrigerator. "Okay, what do we have? Um, we have, uh, leftover pizza..."

"That's mine!" Clint shouted.

"Okay, no pizza. We have what looks like either brains or beef stroganoff."

"Brains," Sergeant mumbled and discovered that the stool would spin. Five seconds later, he discovered that adult humans could get dizzy.

"And cheesecake." Steve sighed. "Brains and cheesecake it is." He straightened up and double-took a look at Sergeant. "Bucky? Are you alright?"

"Okay," Sergeant burped.

Sergeant reheated the stroganoff in a microwave and poured it onto a single plate with two forks. Instead of trying to suggest that Sergeant attempt to work one of them on his own, however, Steve handfed him every second bite of food, none of them big enough to risk choking on. It was actually pretty good, though it didn't taste like brains at all.

"That's so sweet," Natasha said.

"Is it just me, or is Capsicle treating him like the world's biggest toddler?" Tony asked.

"Who cares? It's still hot."

They shared the stroganoff and then Cap brought out the cheesecake, which didn't really look like cheese or cake. Still, Sergeant opened his mouth for it.

Steve was still smiling. "It seems tonight is a success after all. Think you'll try being human again?"

Sergeant thought about it and shrugged. "I guess so."

Steve's smile became blinding and he put a small forkful of cheesecake in Sergeant's mouth.

The taste was indescribable. Sergeant closed his mouth and his eyes widened. "Bucky?" Steve asked, sounding nervous. Sergeant turned his huge eyes first to him and then to the tin of cheesecake before he smashed a hand down in the middle of it, grabbed a clawful, and jammed the whole thing into his mouth "Bucky, no!"

"Yup, definitely a toddler," Tony said.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so very long to finish. All my writing muses have gone away and getting this last chapter out just to tie things up was really hard. At least it’s done now.
> 
> In other news, I have a dog now, a nine-year-old black german shepherd rescue named Ebony (Ebbie for short). She actually looks a lot like Sergeant, if smaller. If she is a werewolf in disguise though, she’s hiding it really well.

Life went on. Sergeant still spent most of his time as a dog - certainly all of it when they were in the public eye - but he did spend more of it as a human than he had before. There were advantages to being a man, he discovered, not least of which was the ability to snark out loud to Steve and not just in his head. The looks of shock on his face were always fun. The snarky return comments once Steve got used to it were even more fun. He hadn’t realized Steve was such a little shit.

Movie night was a toss up as to whether he’d show up as a human or as a dog. Tonight he was a human, dressed in a soft, loose pair of sweats and a sweatshirt because he loved his comfort while Steve worked his fingers through his hand flexing exercises. Sergeant couldn’t be bothered to do them himself, so Steve would just grab his hand whenever they were sitting together with hands available and stretch his fingers into positions they got out of the habit of taking decades ago.

“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy went home. This little piggy jammed straight up your nose-”

Steve stopped his manipulations and eyed him with a look. “Don’t even think about it, Bucky.”

Sergeant grinned at him. “Too late.”

“Trying to watch a movie here,” Tony grumbled as they cut into his heckling of its science.

Vision walked in. He was still freaky as hell, but at least Sergeant couldn’t smell him in this form. “I have the day’s allotment of mail,” he said.

The movie was paused as various Avengers whooped as they were handed their envelopes or packages, though Tony held everything up when he refused to be handed anything. Clint finally just grabbed his mail and shoved it down the front of the man’s shirt.

Vision was left at last with a smallish rectangular box. “Sergeant Rogers,” he read with a puzzled look.

Sergeant shot up the hand Steve had been working on, nearly clocking him in the nose in the process “Mine!” Vision handed it over and everyone watched as he ripped the box open. Inside was a wonderful assortment of dog treats and dog toys.

“Someone sent you dog toys?” Steve asked.

“Nope. Ordered them myself on the internet.”

“How’d you pay for them?”

“With your credit card.”

Steve was still sputtering over that as Sergeant yanked off his sweatshirt, then stood up, bent over right in front of Steve, and dropped his sweatpants to the floor. There were howls of shock or appreciation, along with Sam’s shouted “Man, nobody needs to see that!” but Sergeant was already shifting.

After so much practice lately, the shift was nearly instantaneous and in seconds he was a dog, happily squeaking and chewing his way through the contents of the box as destructively as he could.

Steve gave him an amused and resigned look. “Well, I guess one box isn’t too bad.”

Yeah, just you wait until you find out it’s a monthly subscription service, pal. 

THE END


End file.
